INSTINCT. 75 
How could they have been produced by evolution? The 
workers are sterile and leave no offspring, consequently 
their instincts cannot be inherited from bees of their own 
class. Each generation of workers is isolated from all 
succeeding generations. A colony of bees is not like a 
community of civilized human beings in whom many of 
the wants are artificial, and which may remain unsup- 
plied, with simply a certain amount of discomfort, but 
the wants which the instincts of bees supply are im- 
perative, and, therefore, the instincts themselves, as a 
whole, are necessary to the existence of the bees. Their 
instincts are all linked together as a necessary chain, so 
that if one should fail the community would perish, 
Each kind of work is perfectly done, and yet the workers 
are totally unconscious as to what will be the result of 
their labors. For the most part they work for future 
generations of their colony, and not for themselves, and 
yet they are as careful and diligent as if they were guided 
by the highest intelligence and the most selfish motives. 
Fairhurst, whom we are quoting, adds: “There is nothing 
more wonderful and mysterious in nature than the in- 
stincts of bees. What can be more remarkable than that 
instinct of the workers which causes them to prevent the 
queen from stinging to death the young queens in theit 
cells? Here we see the instinct of the workers opposing 
that of the queen, and thus saving the colony and insuring 
the propagation of the species. And yet at other but 
proper times the workers permit the old queen to kill the 
young ones in their cells. How could these instincts in 
the workers, which act in exactly opposite ways by just 
the right times for the welfare of the community, have 
ever been evolved? Or how could that instinct have 
arisen which causes two queens when engaged in com- 
bat to refrain from inflicting the mortal sting if they 
would mutually destroy each other, and thus leave the 
