Instinct and Discernment 



There you have discernment, which is quite 

 capable of recognizing the regulation prey 

 under very diverse garbs. 



The Megachiles 1 build their honey-jars 

 with disks cut out of leaves; certain An- 

 thidia make felted cotton wallets; others 

 fashion pots out of resin. There you have 

 instinct. Will any rash mind ever conceive 

 the singular idea that the Leaf-cutter might 

 very well have started working in cotton, 

 that the cotton-wool-worker once thought or 

 will one day think of cutting disks out of 

 the leaves of the lilac- or the rose-tree, 

 that the resin-kneader began with clay? 

 Who would dare to indulge in such 

 theories? Each Bee has her art, her 

 medium, to which she strictly confines her- 

 self. The first has her leaves; the second 

 her wadding; the third her resin. None of 

 these guilds has ever changed trades with 

 another; and none ever will. There you 

 have instinct, keeping the workers to their 

 specialities. There are no innovations in 

 their workshops, no formula resulting from 

 experiment, no ingenious devices, no pro- 

 gress from the indifferent to the good, from 

 the good to the excellent. To-day's method 



1 Or Leaf-cutters. Cf. Bramble-bees and Others: chao 

 vm. — Translator's Note, 



i6i 



