The Mason-bees 



little. An instinctive predisposition is her 

 only guide, an infallible guide under normal 

 conditions, but hopelessly lost when subjected 

 to the wiles of the experimenter. Had the 

 Bee the least glimmer of reason, would she 

 lay her egg on the third, on the tenth part of 

 the necessary provender? Would she lay it 

 in an empty cell? Would she be guilty of 

 such inconceivable maternal aberration as to 

 leave her nurseling without nourishment? I 

 have told the story; let the reader decide. 



This instinctive predisposition, which does 

 not leave the insect free to act and, through 

 that very fact, saves it from error, bursts forth 

 under yet another aspect. Let us grant the 

 Bee as much judgment as you please. Thus 

 endowed, will she be capable of meting out 

 the future larva's portion? By no means. 

 The Bee does not know what that portion is. 

 There is nothing to tell the materfamilias; 

 and yet, at her first attempt, she fills the 

 honey-pot to the requisite depth. True, in her 

 childhood, she received a similar ration; but 

 she consumed it in the darkness of a cell; and, 

 besides, as a grub, she was blind. Sight was 

 not her informant: it did not tell her the 

 quantity of the provisions. Did memory, the 

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