INSTINCT 201 



By what steps the instinct of F. sanguinea originated 

 I will not pretend to conjecture. But as ants, which 

 are not slave-makers, will, as I have seen, carry off 

 pupaB of other species, if scattered near their nests, it 

 is possible that such pupae originally stored as food 

 might become developed ; and the foreign ants thus 

 unintentionally reared would then follow their proper 

 instincts, and do what work they could. If their 

 presence proved useful to the species which had seized 

 them — if it were more advantageous to this species to 

 capture workers than to procreate them — the habit of 

 collecting pupae originally for food might by natural 

 selection be strengthened and rendered permanent for 

 the very different purpose of raising slaves. When the 

 instinct was once acquired, if carried out to a much 

 less extent even than in our British F. sanguinea, which, 

 as we have seen, is less aided by its slaves than the same 

 species in Switzerland, I can see no difficulty in natural 

 selection increasing and modifying the instinct — always 

 supposing each modification to be of use to the species 

 — until an ant was formed as abjectly dependent on its 

 slaves as is the Formica rufescens. 



Cell-making instinct of the Hive-Bee. — I will not here 

 enter on minute details on this subject, but will merely 

 give an outline of the conclusions at which I have 

 arrived. He must be a dull man who can examine the 

 exquisite structure of a comb, so beautifully adapted to 

 its end, without enthusiastic admiration. We hear 

 from mathematicians that bees have practically solved 

 a recondite problem, and have made their cells of the 

 proper shape to hold the greatest possible amount of 

 honey, with the least possible consumption of precious 

 wax in their construction. It has been remarked that 

 a skilful workman, with fitting tools and measures, 

 would find it very difficult to make cells of wax of the 

 true form, though this is perfectly effected by a crowd 

 of bees working in a dark hive. Grant whatever 

 instincts you please, and it seems at first quite incon- 

 ceivable how they can make all the necessary angles 



