Chapter X · THE SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION OF THE GENERA, WITH LISTS OF OUR NATIVE SPECIES AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE HABITS AND ECONOMY OF THE INSECTS, WITH INCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS SUGGESTED BY THE SUBJECT. (continued 4)
Reading edition
Some of the labours within the hive are apparently continued at night, or the bees may be then revelling, after the day’s toils, in social enjoyment, or otherwise more worthily employed; for, to use the words of the benevolent apiarian, the Rev. Wm. Chas. Cotton, “If you listen by a hive about nine o’clock, you will hear an oratorio sweeter than any at Exeter Hall. Treble, tenor, and bass are blended in the richest harmony. Sometimes the sound is like the distant hum of a great city, and sometimes it is like a peal of hallelujahs.”
This is the history of the hive and its inhabitants. Modifications may occasionally occur, but nothing of sufficient consequence seriously to affect or neutralize this ordinary routine. It would occupy space already too largely encroached upon to go into these minute particulars, which, although parts of their general history, where treated of in special detail, are not necessarily the province of a work which speaks of them as but one member of the family of which it collectively discourses. As the space occupied by what was really essential to be known about them, has exceeded the due dimensions of 362their share to it, although of paramount interest, infinitely greater than that which attaches to the economy of the whole of the rest of the group combined, it will not, I trust, be considered that I terminate abruptly, in drawing here to a close.
The close of the work concurs with the termination of the history of its crowning marvel; and I take leave of my readers, with a reiteration of the hope that it may stimulate them to undertake a study, wherein, each step of their progress, expands the delightful contemplation of the manifestations of the predominance of a vast design, emanating from the paternal benevolence of an august, supreme, and wisely superintending Providence.
“To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.”—Milton.
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