methods of procedure; but there are also
brigands and warriors, and our superiority even in this department is
not so absolute as might be imagined.

Independently of ordinary brigandage, which is a brutal and simple
form of the struggle for life, manifested every time the animals find
themselves before a single repast, there are interesting facts to be
noted concerning robbers who act in a manner that Man himself would
not disavow. It is worthy of remark that it is the most sociable
animals who furnish us with the most characteristic examples.

Bees have a just renown as honest and laborious insects; there are,
however, some who depart from the right road, and they do not do it by
halves.[31] Among Hymenoptera the lazy profess the theory that pollen
belongs to all bees, and that stored-up honey does not constitute
private property. Therefore, to protest against work and economy, sly
methods are employed by a few to utilise as their own private property
the resources which Nature has made for all; they adopt the plan of
plundering the working insects, and carrying away for themselves the
pollen which the others had had the audacity to seek among the
flowers.

[31] L. Buechner, _Aus d. Geistesleben d. Thiere_, Berlin, 1879.

To arrive at these ends these clever Hymenoptera employ cunning, and
endeavour to pose as workers. They place themselves at the approaches
to a hive, and when a worker arrives laden with its burden they
advance towards it, caress it with their antennae, take possession of
its pollen as if to relieve it of a burden, and then fly away to their
own hive.

Others adopt less diplomatic proceedings. Some unite to intrude in a
badly-guarded hive, and gorge themselves with the honey to which they
have no right. Following up this success, they bring accomplices; a
veritable band of brigands is organised, who have no other industry
than to seize honey already manufactured in order to fill their own
cells. Their audacious enterprises are not always crowned with
success; they are repulsed in populous and well-organised hives, but
they are successful in the weaker ones. Sometimes they act with
violence, and to reduce a swarm they first fall on the queen and kill
her with their stings. Disconcerted by her death, the bees allow the
pillage of their dwelling, and the cells are robbed from top to
bottom. In some cases the deprived proprietors, in their turn carried
away by this insanity of rapine, even go ov