WHAT IS PHYSICAL LIFE 



father nor a working mother to impart to 

 it that wonderful skill which it shows in 

 constructing the cells of its honeycomb. 

 But bees abound in unaccountable inher- 

 itances. Darwin's survival of the fittest, 

 however, may contribute a ray of light on 

 one of their constitutional laws. With a 

 do-nothing male, after his case has been 

 duly considered, two of his spinster sisters 

 take him outside and put him to death, 

 thus ridding their community of such a 

 make-weight. We have not yet reached 

 that utilitarian stage of development, but 

 Darwin thinks that if we only had the 

 useful moral standards of bees we would 

 see nothing wrong in such a performance. 



But bees are not the only hymenoptera 

 which illustrate the puzzles of heredity. 



In one particular species of wasps, the 

 Eumenes, the female makes a most pe- 

 culiar provision for the nourishment of the 

 offspring which she will never herself live 

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