subscribers for the reprint of the Tract, occurs "Jacob
Chandler, basket-maker:" in our times this would be considered a knotty
work for any but a professional reader.

* * * * *

NOTES OF A READER

* * * * *

HISTORY OF INSECTS.

_The Family Library, No. 7. Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Part
6.--Insect Architecture_.

At present we can only notice these works as two of the most delightful
volumes that have for some time fallen into our hands, and as possessing
all the merits which characterize the previous portions of the Series.
Our cognizance of them, in a collected form, must rest till the other
half appears; in the meantime a few _flying_ extracts will prove
amusing:--

_Bees without a Queen_.

These humble creatures cherish their queen, feed her, and provide for
her wants. They live only in her life, and die when she is taken away.
Her absence deprives them of no organ, paralyzes no limb, yet in every
case they neglect all their duties for twenty-four hours. They receive
no stranger queen before the expiration of that time; and if deprived of
the cherished object altogether, they refuse food, and quickly perish.
What, it may be asked, is the physical cause of such devotion? What are
the bonds that chain the little creature to its cell, and force it to
prefer death, to the flowers and the sunshine that invite it to come
forth and live? This is not a solitary instance, in which the Almighty
has made virtues, apparently almost unattainable by us, natural to
animals! For while man has marked, with that praise which great and rare
good actions merit, those few instances in which one human being has
given up his own life for another--the dog, who daily sacrifices himself
for his master, has scarcely found an historian to record his common
virtue.--_Family Library_.

_Cleanliness of Bees_.

Among other virtues possessed by bees, cleanliness is one of the most
marked; they will not suffer the least filth in their abode. It
sometimes happens that an ill-advised slug or ignorant snail chooses to
enter the hive, and has even the audacity to walk over the comb; the
presumptuous and foul intruder is quickly killed, but its gigantic
carcass is not so speedily removed. Unable to transport the corpse
out of their dwelling, and fearing "the noxious smells" arising from
corruption, the bees adopt an efficacious mode of protecting themsel