CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



this wonderful socialistic life come about? How has it been 

 evolved? How can we discover the steps in its evolution? 

 We can trace the social bees and wasps back to solitary bees 

 and wasps, and we can trace a steady growth of complexity 

 in the habits of life of these solitary insects and in the com- 

 plexity of their homes until we reach the stage that is briefly 

 described above. 



One of the characteristics of the bee, as anyone can observe, 



Fig. 10. — Nests of a small carpenter bee in a hollow 

 bramble stem; showing egg, three larva in different stages, 

 and bee-bread in three of the cells. (After Dufour and 

 Perris.) 



is a hairy body. The body is so completely covered with 

 hair that it has a furry appearance. Now the simplest form 

 of bee, which has no common English name but is known 

 scientificially as Prosop/s, has hardly any hair. Its tongue is 

 rudimentary, its hind legs are not adapted for collecting 

 pollen, as are those of the honey-bee, and it does not lead 

 a social life. It makes separate cells, each lined with a silken 

 membrane, in the stems of such plants as brambles (Fig. 

 10) ; or it burrows in the earth, or even in the mortar of 

 walls. It collects little if any pollen and it stores in its 

 separate cells a very weak honey, in which the egg is 



[194] 



