Phillips. — On the Comb of the Hive-bee. 485 



of the wax, its deposit, working and planing off into hexagonal 

 or basal plates. An observer must watch the bees at w^ork in 

 a glass hive, or read any bee-book upon the subject. The sets 

 of combs on the bees' hind feet for scraping up the pollen, 

 and the little baskets or paniers on the tibia joints immediately 

 above these combs for carrying it to the hive, are so wonder- 

 ful in their construction that I can only marvel at this one 

 display of Divine intelligence. My mind positively recoils 

 from ascribing it to any blind principle of natural selection 

 I will admit a slight "sweeping of equal spheres at given 

 distances," because the bees have to work in the dark by feel 

 and sound, and to economize space. There are, I think, one 

 or two other senses than ours amongst bees, of which we at pre- 

 sent know little or nothing. In referring to this point Gosse 

 says, " The comparative moisture or dryness of the atmo- 

 sphere, delicate clianges in its temperature, in its density ; the 

 presence of gaseous exhalations ; the proximity of solid bodies 

 indicated by subtle vibrations of the air; the height above the 

 earth at which flight is performed, measured basometrically ; 

 the various electrical conditions of the atmosphere ; and per- 

 haps many other physical diversities which cannot be classed 

 under sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch, and which may be 

 altogether unappreciable, and therefore altogether inconceiv- 

 able, by us." To which I may add now the " sembling " of 

 insects, more especially that of the oak egger-moth {Lasio- 

 campa quercits). But there are a hundred marvels of vital 

 action, energy, or intelligence connected with a bee-hive^such 

 as the bees always turning their faces to the queen (just as 

 man does to his queen) as^ she moves through the hive ; their 

 choice of a queen, and all the struggles consequent thereupon; 

 their building a palace of beautiful comb for the queen, and its 

 strategical defence ; their killing off the drones or superfluous 

 bees before the winter sets in ; their crooning the night before 

 swarming, just as men and women croon and cry when they 

 have to leave their parent homes ; their sw^arming, and their 

 hanging about in the vicinity of the parent hive for two or 

 three days in order to see whether man will put them in a 

 box and place them near their birthplace ; their harmlessness 

 whilst waiting about, and the ease by which an experienced 

 bee- taker can sweep them with his bare hand into their new 

 hive, &c. All these things rest upon the immutable principles 

 of a guiding vital intelligence, from which natural selection is 

 as far removed as the sun from the earth. All this is done 

 by what we have perhaps mistakenly named "instinct." 



But closely examine the new swarm when clustering upon 

 a bough — there is little danger, as bees rarely sting during 

 swarming time — it will be observ'ed that the individual bees 

 are constantly on the move ; those on the inside coming to 



