312 INSECT LIFE 



XXII 



obeys an inevitable, unconscious impulse. It has no 

 choice as to what it shall do, — no discernment as to 

 what is and is not desirable, — but glides, as it were, 

 down an irresistible slope prepared for it beforehand 

 to bring it to a determined end. The facts still to 

 be stated affirm this strongly. 



The bee, which is building, and to which I 

 offer a cell ready made and full of honey, will not 

 give up building for that ; she is following her 

 trade as mason, and once on that tack, led on by 

 unconscious impulse, she must needs build, even if 

 her labour be superfluous and contrary to her 

 interests. The cell I give her is certainly quite 

 complete in the opinion of its own constructor, since 

 the bee from whom I subtracted it was finishing the 

 store of honey. To touch it up, and, above all, to 

 add to it is useless and absurd. All the same the bee 

 which is building will build. On the orifice of the 

 honey store she lays another layer of mortar, then 

 another and another, until the cell is actually a third 

 beyond its usual height. Now the task is done — 

 not as well indeed as if the bee had continued the 

 cell whose foundations she was laying when the 

 nests were exchanged, but certainly in a way more 

 than enough to demonstrate the irresistible impulse 

 which drove the builder on. Then came the storing, 

 likewise abridged, for otherwise the honey would 

 overflow by the union of the stores of two bees. 

 Thus the mason bee, which is beginning to build, and 

 to which one gives a cell completed and filled with 

 honey, alters nothing in the order of her work. First 

 she builds and then she stores ; only she shortens her 

 labours — instinct warning her that the height of the 



