The Life of the Bee 



generally among the bees, they would end 

 by detecting the pitfall, and by taking 

 steps to elude it. They have mastered 

 the intricacies of the movable comb, of 

 the sections that compel them to store 

 their surplus honey in little boxes sym- 

 metrically piled ; and in the case of the 

 still more extraordinary innovation of 

 foundation wax, where the cells are indi- 

 cated only by a slender circumference 

 of wax, they are able at once to grasp 

 the advantages this new system presents ; 

 they most carefully extend the wax, and 

 thus, without loss of time or labour, 

 construct perfect cells. So long as the 

 event that confronts them appear not 

 a snare devised by some cunning and 

 malicious god, the bees may be trusted 

 always to discover the best, nay, the only 

 human, solution. Let me cite an in- 

 stance ; an event, that, though occurring 

 in nature, is still in itself wholly abnor- 



