workers, a spirit of confidence, that apparently nothing can trouble.  They have detached themselves from the wealth they had to defend, and they no longer recognise their enemies.  They become inoffensive because of their happiness, though why they are happy we know not, except it be because they are obeying their law.  A moment of such blind happiness is accorded by nature at times to every living thing, when she seeks to accomplish her end.  Nor need we feel any surprise that here the bees are her dupes; we ourselves, who have studied her movements these centuries past, and with a brain more perfect than that of the bee, we too are her dupes, and know not even yet whether she be benevolent or indifferent, or only basely cruel.

There where the queen has alighted the swarm will remain; and had she descended alone into the hive, the bees would have followed, in long black files, as soon as intelligence had reached them of the maternal retreat.  The majority will hasten to her, with utmost eagerness; but large numbers will pause for an instant on the threshold of the unknown abode, and there will describe the circles of solemn rejoicing with which it is their habit to celebrate happy events.  “They are beating to arms,” say the French peasants.  And then the strange home will at once be accepted, and its remotest corners explored; its position in the apiary, its form, its colour, are grasped and retained in these thousands of prudent and faithful little memories.  Careful note is taken of the neighbouring landmarks, the new city is founded, and its place established in the mind and the heart of all its inhabitants; the walls resound with the love-hymn of the royal presence, and work begins.

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But if the swarm be not gathered by man, its history will not end here.  It will remain suspended on the branch until the return of the workers, who, acting as scouts, winged quartermasters, as it were, have at the very first moment of swarming sallied forth in all directions in search of a lodging.  They return one by one, and render account of their mission; and as it is manifestly impossible for us to fathom the thought of the bees, we can only interpret in human fashion the spectacle that they present.  We may regard it as probable, therefore, that most careful attention is given to the reports of the various scouts.  One of them it may be, dwells on the advantage of some hollow tree it has seen; another is in favour of a crevice in a ruinous wall, of a cavity in a grotto, or an abandoned burrow.  The assembly often will pause and deliberate until the following morning.  Then at last the choice is made, and approved by all.  At a given moment the entire mass stirs, disunites, sets in motion, and then, in one sustained and impetuous flight, that this time knows no obstacle, it will steer its straight course, over hedges and cornfields, over haystack and lake, over river and village, to its determined and always distant goal.  It is rarely indeed that this second stage can be followed by man.  The swarm returns to nature; and we lose the track of its destiny.