The most worthy of our attention in this respect are the Hymenoptera, upon whom the cares of maternity devolve in their fulness. All these favourites of instinct prepare board and lodging for their offspring. They become past masters in a host of industries for the sake of a family which their faceted eyes never behold and which, nevertheless, the maternal foresight knows quite well. One becomes a manufacturer of cotton goods and mills cotton-wool bottles; another sets up as a basket-maker and weaves hampers out of scraps of flowers; a third turns mason and builds rooms of cement and domes of road-metal; a fourth starts a pottery-works, in which the clay is kneaded into shapely vases and jars and bulging pots; yet another adopts the calling of a pitman and digs mysterious warm, moist passages underground. A thousand trades similar to ours and often even unknown to our industrial system are employed in the preparation of the abode. Next come the victuals of the expected nurslings: piles of honey, loaves of pollen, stores of preserved game, cunningly paralyzed. In such works as these, having the future of the family for their exclusive object, the highest manifestations of the instinct are displayed under the impulse of maternity. In the rest of the entomological order, the mother’s cares are generally very summary. In most cases, they are confined to the laying of the eggs in favourable spots, where the grub can find a bed and food at its own risk and peril. Where education is so rustic, talents are superfluous. Lycurgus banished the arts from his republic, as enervating. In like manner, the higher inspirations of the instinct are banished among insects brought up in Spartan simplicity. The mother neglects the gentle cares of the cradle; and the prerogatives of the intellect, the best of all, diminish and disappear, so true is it that for the animal, even as for ourselves, the family is a source of perfection. While the Hymenoptera, so extremely thoughtful of their progeny, fill us with wonder, the others, which abandon theirs to the chances of good luck or bad, must seem to us, by comparison, of but little interest. These others form almost the entirety; at least, to my knowledge, among the fauna of our country-sides, there is only one other instance of insects preparing board and lodging for their family, as do the gatherers of honey and the buriers of baskets full of game.