We shall enjoy the satisfaction of seeing them weave their winter shelter. It will be pleasanter for them under our roof than at the bottom of the vase. The mother's intentions will be carefully carried out. Adopted, tended, and removed to Paris, the nymphs of Fontainebleau will take, one fine morning in spring, their flight above our windows, and, as young bees, will be able to gather, if not the honey of the heather, at least that of the Luxembourg. [Illustration] [Illustration: V.--THE ORPHAN: ITS FEEBLENESS.] [Illustration] CHAPTER V. THE ORPHAN: ITS FEEBLENESS.[H] [Footnote H: _La Frileuse_,--literally, "The chilly one."] We have told the easiest and pleasantest story to relate, the story of the privileged creature for whom its mother has duly provided, and who is nourished and clothed by her efforts. But many--in truth, the greatest number--enter life destitute and necessitous. They fall naked into the great world. Poverty the audacious, necessity the ingenious, the severe internal travail of hunger and desire, stimulate and develop the energetic organs which come to their assistance. What organs? The great Swammerdam, the martyr of patience, was the first to distinguish them. With a piercing eye, examining the newly-hatched egg,--that dubious foundation!--he seized the opening lineaments of life, and marked in them the profound and decisive characters which make the mystery of the insect. He saw the little creature, with its gelatinous body, push forward its mandible or jaws,--a distinct and complete organ, placed in front of the mouth, and visibly intended to nourish and protect the still feeble being. Behind this active apparatus he detected on the sides of the body a passive apparatus, a series of tiny mouths or valves (the _stigmata_) which await the air, and open to receive it.