Phillips. — On the Cottch of the Hive-bee. 487 



of a sweeping of an equal sphere at all? Examtne the cell. 

 It is six-sided, almost mathematically correct. The basal 

 plates of the rhomb do not form a plane, but contain three 

 faces or oblique angles too, so that I cannot see where the 

 " sweeping of equal spheres" finds place in this construction. 

 They may start the cell by sweeping a sphere, but there is no 

 sphere left by the time the cell is finished. The bees measure 

 the cell-distances in the layer by the size of their own bodies ; 

 and then tlie prmciple of construction is hexagonal and not 

 circular. The cell of the humble-bee is circular ; that of 

 Melipona domestica civcw\a.\', and oftentimes a "gross imita- 

 tion of the cell of the hive-bee." But can any person say 

 that the cell of the hive-bee is not the proper cell, devised and 

 perfected by nature, and that the humble-bee cell and that of. 

 Melipona are only variations? As a rule, it is the humble-bee 

 that drives the hive bee away. What ground, then, has 

 Darwin for applying his theory to this construction at all ? 

 Do his instances prove his argument? Can they not be read 

 entirely the other way — namely, that they are but degraded 

 variations of the proper cell? And if we find that Darwin has 

 been absolutely mistaken in applying his theory to this one 

 insect, what value are we to attach to his other instances of 

 proof? The cell of the humble-bee ought to be far and away 

 superior to the cell of the hive-bee, but it is not so. 



Darwin, moreover, names it as " the most wonderful of all 

 known instincts, that of the hive-bee." In my opinion he is 

 wrong. The ant shows a far more wonderful display of what 

 is called " instinct." I shall refer later on to the ant. The 

 bee, ant, spider, and man show similar knowledge of exactly 

 similar subjects. To say that the bee works without this 

 knowledge, but simply owing to " blind evolution by natural 

 selection, having taken advantage of numerous successive 

 slight modifications of simpler instincts" (which modifications 

 and instances are not given), is to me a proposition quite un- 

 tenable. 



A hive swarms. A certain number of the older bees may, 

 or may not, accompany the queen and the young bees. These 

 may or may not teach the new swarm how to begin their 

 labours and use their little planes— like our carpenter's planes 

 — to level off and reduce to a uniform thickness the walls of 

 their cells. And let it be noted, how beautiful and perfect the 

 wall of the hexagon is — never breaking into an adjoining cell, 

 but a perfectly watertight compartment for holding its store of 

 honey, food, or young larvae. In my opinion there is no ne- 

 cessity for the young brood to be taught how to go to work any 

 more than it is taught how to sv?arm. In the realm of nature 

 throughout the whole universe we see around us, certain com- 

 mon vital laws rule. A young hive-bee goes to work with its 



