Phillips. — On tlie Comb of tlic Hive-bee. iSl 



I should certainly think he supervised it. But it is quite plain 

 that so little was thought of these two words that they were 

 omitted from the index. In his conclusion Darwin certainly 

 continues with the words, "the motive-power of the process 

 of natural selection," as being sufficient to account for the cell- 

 construction of the hive-bee ; but no person has yet granted 

 natural selection to be a motive-power. Every one admits 

 that vital intelligence is a motive-power, because we all ex- 

 perience it, although we do not know what it really is; and we 

 can all further admit that natural selection is one method by 

 which that intelligence acts, subject, however, to the higher 

 law of progressive adaptation of species. That is to say, that 

 each species, like a magic puzzle, has in itself the power to 

 change, to adapt itself, to build cell on cell, by a thousand 

 thousand differeiit modifications, so as to enable it to suit itself 

 to new environments. I pointed this out in section iii. of my 

 paper — ■" Potentiality of Divergence.""^' 



The bridging principle of construction in the comb of the 

 hive-bee can be seen at a glance in both boxes on the table. 

 There is no simple cell-construction in the bold manner in 

 which the bees throw their comb straight across the two holes 

 — no simple "sweeping of equal spheres from respective dis- 

 tances." Again, it will be observed that the walls of comb 

 stand at certain distances from each other — never less than 

 three lines, but usually six lines — that being, I suppose, as far 

 as the bees can reach between wall and wall of comb. Surely 

 the bees know what they are doing when rigidly keeping the 

 different lines of comb at these stated distances. For it will 

 be observed that, no matter how the bases of the hanging walls 

 of comb start, whether in straight or diagonal lines, each 

 single wall rarely approaches a neighbouring wall within three 

 lines. These bases, indeed, can start anywhere in the box, 

 because the bees evidently possess two separate pieces of 

 knowledge amongst many others : (1) The average length of 

 the rhombus or cell to accommodate the larvae ; (2) the dis- 

 tance to be observed between the walls of growing comb. 

 Possessing these two pieces of knowledge, which Darwin does 

 not credit the bees with, as well as the "instinct of the sweep- 

 ing of spheres " to form the cells, which he does credit them 

 with, the bees can fill in a space anywhere in the box. The 

 result always is that a box becomes filled with walls of live 

 comb at stated distances apart, and the two layers of cells of 

 fairly equal lengths. But should a growing wall of comb 

 come in contact with a neighbouring wall, as sometimes 

 happens, that contact is immediately stopped, and the point 

 of contact forms a stay. It will be observed that these stays 



Trans. N.Z. Inst., 1893, p. 611. 

 31 



