INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 477 



pupa state, the grub requires that the cell should not be 

 too short for its movements. Bonnet having placed a 

 swarm in a very flat glass hive, the bees constructed one 

 of the combs parallel to one of the principal sides, 

 where it was so straight that they could not give to the 

 cells their ordinary depth. The queen, however, laid 

 eggs in them, and the workers daily nourished the grubs, 

 and closed the cells at the period of transformation. A 

 few days afterwards he was surprised to perceive in the 

 lids, holes more or less large, out of which the grubs 

 partly projected, the cells having been too short to admit 

 of their usual movements. He was curious to know how 

 the bees would proceed. He expected that they would 

 pull all the grubs out of the cells, as they commonly 

 do when great disorders in the combs take place. But 

 he did not sufficiently give credit to the resources of their 

 instinct. They did not displace a single grub they left 

 them in their cells : but as they saw that these cells were 

 not deep enough, they closed them afresh with lids much 

 more convex them ordinary, so as to give to them a suf- 

 ficient depth ; and from that time no more holes were 

 made in the lids. 



The working bees, in closing up the cells containing 

 larvae, invariably give a convex lid to the large cells of 

 drones, and one nearly flat to the smaller cells of work- 

 ers : but in an experiment instituted by Huber to ascer- 

 tain the influence of the size of the cells on that of the 

 included larvae, he transferred the larvae of workers to 

 the cells of drones. What was the result ? Did the bees 

 still continue blindly to exercise their ordinary instinct ? 

 On the contrary, they now placed a nearly flat lid upon 



