■482 Transactions. — Zoology. 



are numerous round the sides of the box. This is evidently to 

 strengthen the walls of comb and keep them firm, the stays 

 rarely impeding the free passing of the bees round the hive. 



In Article Ixxi. of our Transactions of 1893, " Spiders as 

 Engineers," I pointed out how beautifully spiders stayed their 

 webs, and showed, moreover, that some of our own susj)en- 

 sion-bridges (notably the one in Hobson Street, Wellington) 

 are stayed exactly in a similar manner. Now, if any person 

 closely examines box A he will observe somewhat similar stays 

 all round the box, but rarely between the walls of comb. What, 

 then, is the intelligence that guides insects and animals to stay 

 their constructions in this way? Wherein does the theory of 

 natural selection account for it ? Does nature, under that 

 theory, thin out all the variations of the different species until 

 only those survive which know how to adopt this principle of 

 staying? For that is the constant argument: "Only those 

 survive that have been naturally selected to survive." Now, 

 granting this argument, under the higher law of pi-ogressive 

 adaptation, how does the theory account for such widely-dif- 

 ferent species as man, spiders, and bees using almost the same 

 principle in staying their widely-different structures? For, 

 whether the stay is made of wax, web, or iron, there the prin- 

 ciple is all the same. To say that " Similarity of object leads 

 to similarity of means " implies that there is in nature a 

 previously-existing method or means to a particular end for 

 all species. 



Furthermore, it will be observed that the walls of comb run 

 fairly straight : so that bees know how to make fairly straight 

 hnes, as well as how to make bridges. I do not say ihat every 

 wall is absolutely straight — there are curves in some — but 

 the tendency is to run straight lines. Of the three centre 

 lines of comb in box A, the bees, it will be observed, had a 

 guide for two of the walls in the little gap where the two 

 boards forming the top of the box should have closely met. 

 The third wall, of course, followed the centre wall near the 

 gap after it had been constructed. 



The reason for the diagonal walls is not clear. I have 

 seen boxes of comb with all the walls fairly parallel and straight 

 excepting in one corner, where the beautiful white comb forming 

 the queen's home is built. This comb is usually built dia- 

 gonally, perhaps for purposes of easier defence should an 

 enemy invade the hive. The fact of aiming at straight lines 

 at all, even in the diagonal walls, shov^-s a bee's further know- 

 ledge, which Darwin ignored. I do not for one moment mean 

 to say that the principle of natural or artificial selection is 

 absolutely non-existent in nature. What I mean is that in 

 the higher law of progressive adaptation of species, natural 

 selection plays, as I have said, only a minor part. 



