204 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. 



class to choose for our present purpose, because, as I have 

 shown in " Animal Intelligence," their wonderful instinct of 

 making hexagonal cells can only be regarded as an instinct 

 of the primary kind ; yet, as we shall see, though so well 

 fixed an instinct of the primary kind, it may be greatly 

 modified by an intelligent appreciation of novel circum- 

 stances. 



Kirby and Spence, detailing the observations of Huber, 

 write as follows : — 



" A comb, not having been originally well fastened to the 

 top of his glass hive, fell down during the winter amongst 

 the other combs, preserving, however, its parallelism with 

 them. The bees could not fill up the space between its upper 

 edge and the top of the hive, because they never construct 

 combs of old wax, and they had not then an opportunity of 

 procuring new ; at a more favourable season they would not 

 have hesitated to build a new comb upon the old one ; but it 

 being inexpedient at that period to expend their provision of 

 honey in the elaboration of wax, they provided for the 

 stability of the fallen comb by another process. They 

 furnished themselves with wax from the other combs by 

 gnawing away the rims of the cells more elongated than the 

 rest, and then betook themselves in crowds, some upon the 

 edges of the fallen comb, others between its sides and those 

 of the adjoining combs, and there securely fixed it by con- 

 structing several ties of different shapes between it and the 

 glass of the hive ; some were pillars, some buttresses, and 

 others beams artfully disposed and adapted to the localities 

 of the surfaces joined. Nor did they content themselves 

 with repairing the accidents which their masonry had ex- 

 perienced ; they provided against those which might happen, 

 and appeared to profit by the warning given by the fall of one 

 of the combs to consolidate the others and prevent a second 

 accident of the same nature. 



" These last had not been displaced, and appeared solidly 

 attached by their base : whence Huber was not a little sur- 

 prised to see the bees strengthen their principal points of 

 connexion by making them much thicker than before with 

 old wax, and forming numerous ties and braces to unite them 

 more closely to each other and to the walls of their habita- 

 tion. What was still more extraordinary, all this happened 

 in the middle of January, at a period when the bees ordinarily 



