At present we can only notice these works as two of the most delightful volumes that have for some time fallen into our hands, and as possessing all the merits which characterize the previous portions of the Series. Our cognizance of them, in a collected form, must rest till the other half appears; in the meantime a few flying extracts will prove amusing:—
Bees without a Queen.
These humble creatures cherish their queen, feed her, and provide for her wants. They live only in her life, and die when she is taken away. Her absence deprives them of no organ, paralyzes no limb, yet in every case they neglect all their duties for twenty-four hours. They receive no stranger queen before the expiration of that time; and if deprived of the cherished object altogether, they refuse food, and quickly perish. What, it may be asked, is the physical cause of such devotion? What are the bonds that chain the little creature to its cell, and force it to prefer death, to the flowers and the sunshine that invite it to come forth and live? This is not a solitary instance, in which the Almighty has made virtues, apparently almost unattainable by us, natural to animals! For while man has marked, with that praise which great and rare good actions merit, those few instances in which one human being has given up his own life for another—the dog, who daily sacrifices himself for his master, has scarcely found an historian to record his common virtue.—Family Library.
Cleanliness of Bees.
Among other virtues possessed by bees, cleanliness is one of the most marked; they will not suffer the least filth in their abode. It sometimes happens that an ill-advised slug or ignorant snail chooses to enter the hive, and has even the audacity to walk over the comb; the presumptuous and foul intruder is quickly killed, but its gigantic carcass is not so speedily removed. Unable to transport the corpse out of their dwelling, and fearing "the noxious smells" arising from corruption, the bees adopt an efficacious mode of protecting themselves; they embalm their offensive enemy, by covering him over with propolis; both Maraldi and Reaumur have seen this. The latter observed that a snail had entered a hive, and fixed itself to the glass side, just as it does against walls, until the rain shall invite it to thrust out its head beyond its shell. The bees, it seemed, did not like the interloper, and not being able to penetrate the shell with their sting, took a hint from the snail itself, and instead of covering it all over with propolis, the cunning economists fixed it immovably, by cementing merely the edge of the orifice of the shell to the glass with this resin, and thus it became a prisoner for life, for rain cannot dissolve this cement, as it does that which the insect itself uses.[5]—Ibid.
It furnishes a subject of serious consideration, as well as an argument for a special providence, to know, that the accurate Reaumur, and other naturalists, have observed, that when any kind of insect has increased inordinately, their natural enemies have increased in the same proportion, and thus preserved the balance.—Ibid.
Gnats.
There are few insects with whose form we are better acquainted than that of the gnat. It is to be found in all latitudes and climates; as prolific in the Polar as in the Equatorial regions. In 1736 they were so numerous, and were seen to rise in such clouds from Salisbury cathedral, that they looked like columns of smoke, and frightened the people, who thought the building was on fire. In 1766, they appeared at Oxford, in the form of a thick black cloud; six columns were observed to ascend the height of fifty or sixty feet. Their bite was attended with alarming inflammation. To some appearances of this kind our great poet, Spenser, alludes, in the following beautiful simile:—
As when a swarm of gnats at eventide,
Out of the fennes of Allan doe arise,