ANIMAL AND RATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 203 



as if the preliminary work had been done by them 

 selves. Closer observation of bees when engaged in 

 their Avork suggests that what we have hitherto 

 taken as instinct in building the cell, is a result 

 rather of the structure and functions of the body. 

 The wax is secreted by a gland under the plates 

 laid over each other behind the wings. With this, is 

 connected a series of very fine fibres or hairs, longer 

 at the centre, shortened towards the sides. 1 When 

 structure, function, and results are compared, it seems 

 that the form of the cell arises from the form and range 

 of mechanical appliances belonging to the worker. 



The almost mechanical exactness in the action of 

 insects becomes exceedingly suggestive. P. Huber 

 gives a striking illustration in the life of a caterpillar 

 which makes a very complicated hammock. These 

 observations have been summarised by Darwin. 2 If 

 he took a caterpillar which had completed its ham 

 mock up to, say, the sixth stage of construction, 

 and put it into a hammock completed up only to the 

 third stage, the caterpillar simply re-performed the 

 fourth, fifth, and sixth stages of construction. If, 

 however, a caterpillar were taken out of a hammock 

 made up, for instance, to the third stage, and were 

 put into one finished up to the sixth stage, so that 

 much of its work was already done for it, far from de 

 riving any benefit from this, it was much embarrassed, 

 and in order to complete its hammock, seemed forced 

 to start from the third stage, where it had left off, and 

 thus tried to complete the already finished work. It 

 thus seems that functional action and sensory ex- 



1 Cheshire s Bees and Beekeeping, vol. i. p. 153. 



2 Origin of Species, p. 192. 



