Without Doubt
They See You, And Have Some Idea Of The Meaning Of Your Various Motions.
The Wild Bees Are A Constant Source Of Interest, Much More So Than The
Hive Bee, Which Is So Extremely Regular In Its Ways.
With an explosion
almost like a little bomb shot out of a flower; with an immense hum,
almost startling, boom!
The great bombus hurls himself up in the air from
under foot; well named - boom - bombus. Is it correct or is it only a
generalisation, that insects like ants and hive bees, who live in great
and well-organised societies, are more free from the attacks of parasites
than the comparatively solitary wild bees? Ants are, indeed, troubled
with some parasites, but these do not seem to multiply very greatly, and
do not seriously injure the populousness of the nest. They have enemies
which seize them, but an enemy is not a parasite. On the other hand, too,
they have mastered a variety of insects, and use them for their
delectation and profit. Hive bees are likewise fairly free from
parasites, unless, indeed, their so-called dysentery is caused by some
minute microbe. These epidemics, however, are rare. Take it altogether,
the hive bee appears comparatively free of parasites. Enemies they have,
but that is another matter.
Have these highly civilised insects arrived in some manner at a solution
of the parasite problem? Have they begun where human civilisation may be
said to have ended, with a diligent study of parasitic life? All our
scientific men are now earnestly engaged in the study of bacteria,
microbes, mycelium, and yeast, infinitesimally minute fungi of every
description, while meantime the bacillus is eating away the lives of a
heavy percentage of our population. Ants live in communities which might
be likened to a hundred Londons dotted about England, so are their nests
in a meadow, or, still more striking, on a heath. Their immense crowds,
the population of China to an acre, do not breed disease. Every ant out
of that enormous multitude may calculate on a certain average duration of
life, setting aside risks from battle, birds, and such enemies. Microbes
are unlikely to destroy her. Now this is a very extraordinary
circumstance. In some manner the ants have found out a way of
accommodating themselves to the facts of their existence; they have
fitted themselves in with nature and reached a species of millennium. Are
they then more intelligent than man? We have certainly not succeeded in
doing this yet; they are very far ahead of us. Are their eyes, divided
into a thousand facets, a thousand times more powerful than our most
powerful microscopes, and can they see spores, germs, microbes, or
bacilli where our strongest lenses find nothing? I have some doubts as to
whether ants are really shut out of many flowers by hairs pointing
downwards in a fringe and similar contrivances. The ant has a singularly
powerful pair of mandibles: put one between your shirt and skin and try;
the nip you will get will astonish you.
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