490 Transactions. — Zoology. 



There are many other points to be considered in this 

 matter of honeycomb-construction and the cell-making in- 

 stinct of the hive-bee, but I will rest content with the points 

 I have already raised, merely asking any unprejudiced person 

 whether Darwin's premises and conclusion are borne out in 

 this one instance by his theory of natural selection. In 

 Brazil there is a bee that builds its comb on the very outmost 

 twigs of lofty trees, as a protection against climbing and 

 marauding enemies. Wherein does this exhibition of intelli- 

 gence differ much from the New Guinea natives building their 

 huts in lofty trees for similar protective purposes ? To my 

 mind, very little. Yet we are asked to admit that bees live 

 their life and work in sole accordance with a blind principle 

 of natural selection. 



being in shape and size not unlike an acorn. In each of these, if more 

 than one, either a worker-egg— worker- and drone-eggs being dissimilar, 

 and laid in different comb— or a worker and worker-larva not more than 

 three days old is placed, and the latva is fed with peculiar food, called 

 "royal pap " or " royal jelly," with the result that in sixteen days — five 

 days less than would be required for a worker and nine less than for a 

 drone — a queen, or perfect female, is produced. She alone has a life 

 extending to years, that of the workers being limited to months at the 

 longest." 



