Selection Theory applied, 153 



loss of honey. He makes his explanation of the 

 existence of the Instinct that constructs hexagonal 

 cells, all turn on the fact that the bees must live 

 over the winter. 



But let us consider the work of the Wasps in 

 the light of this theory. They do not use up honey 

 in making their cells, and they do not live over the 

 winter, so that Natural Selection has no chance to 

 preserve the best builders through any such means 

 as might be urged in the case of the Honey-bee. 

 The Wasps perish every fall, excepting a few fertile 

 females that desert the nest and live in some hiding- 

 place, as we have before explained, to commence 

 the new colonies the next year; and yet several 

 species of Wasps and Hornets build six-sided cells, 

 like the Honey-bee. 



There is nothing here that aids at all, in the 

 selection theory, even as Mr. Darwin has attempted 

 to apply it to the Honey-bee.* Both of the means 

 through which he attempts to show that Natural 

 Selection acts in saving skilful builders, — the saving 

 of honey in making cells of the best pattern and 

 the necessity of the honey so saved, for winter use, 

 — are here wanting ; and yet the Wasps are as skil- 

 ful mathematicians as though the existence of the 

 species depended upon the angle of the cell ! 



The plain truth is, we .have Bees and Wasps 

 building in many different ways. Each method is 

 connected with a peculiar structure and a whole 

 train of Instincts. Besides, the whole doctrine of 

 correlation, that seems to be solely relied upon to 

 * " Origin of Species," 5tli Am. Ed., pp. 323, 224. 



