Page:The life of the bee (IA cu31924101469827).pdf/405

The Progress of the Race at the expense of the working type of its race.

Among the bees, however, which are somewhat too arbitrarily termed the "solitary Apidæ," the social instinct already is smouldering, like a flame crushed beneath the overwhelming weight of matter that stifles all primitive life. And here and there, in unexpected directions, as though reconnoitring, with timid and sometimes fantastic outbursts, it will succeed in piercing the mass that op- 393