XXI 



EXPERIMENTS 293 



round the other nest, so that, as in the first case, 

 there was a double barrier, an earthen and a paper 

 one, with, however, this difference — that the two 

 barriers were not close together, there being a space 

 between them of about a centimetre at the base, and 

 increasing as the cone rises. The results of these 

 two experiments were quite unlike. The Hymenop- 

 tera from the nest where paper had been applied to 

 the dome came forth by piercing the double barrier, 

 the outer one being pierced by a clean round hole, 

 as in the reed cells closed in the same way. For the 

 second time it is shown that if the bee is stopped 

 by a paper barrier, the cause is not incapacity to 

 deal with such an obstacle. On the other hand, 

 after they had pierced their earthen vault, the 

 dwellers in the second nest who found the sheet of 

 paper a little way off, made no attempt to overcome 

 the obstacle over which they would so easily have 

 triumphed had it been attached to the nest. They 

 died under the cover without an effort for freedom. 

 So had perished Reaumur's bees under his glass 

 tube when there was but a bit of gauze between 

 them and freedom. This fact appears to me rich in 

 consequences. What ! Here are strong insects 

 which find penetrating tufa mere play, and a stopper 

 of thin wood or a sheet of paper quite easy to pierce, 

 new as these are to them, and yet these vigorous 

 insects let themselves stupidly perish imprisoned in 

 a cone of paper which they might have torn to 

 bits with .one bite of their mandibles. They might — - 

 but they never dreamed of doing so. The motive 

 of their dull inertness can be only this — the insect 

 is excellently endowed with tools and instinctive 



