34^ THE INSECT WORLD. 



replied his assistant naturalist, " you have saidj nothing but what is ! 

 quite true ; but, without meaning it, you have made a political 

 allusion. You spoke against kings, and our young republicans! 

 thought that you were alluding to Louis XVI." ''Indeed," said thei 

 coadjutor of Buffon, "I had no idea that I was talking politics !" 

 The bee republic, this little animal society, is admirably constituted, 

 and all its citizens obey its laws with dociHty. 



Bees have often served as an example, proving, according to some, 

 the marvellous intelligence of certain little animals ; according tol 

 others, an insect wonderfully developed. For ourselves, we havd 

 never well understood what people mean by the word instinct; and 

 we frankly grant to the bee intelligence, as we do also to manyj 

 animals. The greater number of the acts of their life seem to be the 

 result of an idea, a mental deliberation, a determination come to afteii 

 examination and reflection. The construction of their cells, alway?' 

 uniform, is, they say, the result of instinct. However, it happens thai 

 under particular circumstances, these little architects know how t( 

 abandon the beaten track of routine, reserving to themselves tht 

 i:)Ower of returning, when it is useful to do so, to the traditional prin 

 ciples which ensure the beauty and regularity of their constructions 

 Bees have been seen, indeed, to deviate from their ordinary habits ii 

 order to correct ■ certain irregularities — the result of accident or pre 

 duced by the intervention of man — which had deranged their works. 



Francis Huber relates that he saw bees propping up with pillar 

 and flying buttresses of wax a piece of the honeycomb which ha< 

 fallen down. At the same time, put on their guard by this sad ace 

 dent, they set to work to fortify the principal framework of the otht 

 combs, and to fasten them more securely to the roof of the hivt 

 This took place in the month of January, and therefore not durin 

 the working season, and when to provide against a distant eventualit 

 was the only question. M. Waland has reported an analogoi 

 observation. Is there not here, in the first place, a true an 

 excellent reasoning, then an act, an operation, a work, execute 

 as the result of this reasoning ? Now, an operation which is pe 

 formed as the result of reasoning, is attributable to intelligence. Agaii 

 the bees give different sorts of food to the different sorts of larvc' 

 They know how to change this food when an accident has deprive 

 the hive of its queen, and it is necessary to replace her; this 

 another proof of intelligence. 



But it is, above all, in the face of an enemy that the intellectu 

 faculties of these insects show themselves. There are always at tl 

 ■entrance of every hive three or four bees, which have nothing else 



