346 THE INSECT WORLD. 



replied his assistant viaturalist, " you have said nothing but what is 

 quite true; but, without meaning it, you have made a poUtical 

 alkision. You spoke against kings, and our young repubUcans 

 thought that you were alkiding to Louis XVI." " Indeed," said the 

 coadjutor of Buffon, "I had no idea that I was talking poHtics !" 

 The bee repubUc, this Httle animal society, is admirably constituted, 

 and all its citizens obey its laws with docility. 



Bees have often served as an example, proving, according to some, 

 the marvellous intelligence of certain Httle animals ; according to 

 others, an insect wonderfully developed. For ourselves, we have 

 never well understood what people mean by the word instinct ; and 

 we frankly grant to the bee intelligence, as we do also to many 

 animals. The greater number of the acts of their life seem to be the 

 result of an idea, a mental deliberation, a determination come to after 

 examination and reflection. The construction of their cells, always 

 uniform, is, they say, the result of instinct. However, it happens that 

 under particular circumstances, these little architects know how to 

 abandon the beaten track of routine, reserving to themselves the 

 power of returning, when it is useful to do so, to the traditional prin- 

 ciples which ensure the beauty and regularity of their constructions. 

 Bees have been seen, indeed, to deviate from their ordinary habits in 

 order to correct certain irregularities — the result of accident or pro- 

 duced by the intervention of man — which had deranged their works. 



Francis Huber relates that he saw bees propping up with pillars 

 and flying buttresses of wax a piece of the honeycomb which had 

 fallen down. At the same time, put on their guard by this sad acci- 

 dent, they set to work to fortify the principal framework of the other 

 combs, and to fasten them more securely to the roof of the hive. 

 This took place in the month of January, and therefore not during 

 the working season, and when to provide against a distant eventuality 

 was the only question. M. VValand has reported an analogous 

 observation. Is there not here, in the first place, a true and 

 excellent reasoning, then an act, an operation, a work, executed 

 as the result of this reasoning ? Now, an operation which is per- 

 formed as the result of reasoning, is attributable to intelligence. Again, 

 the bees give different sorts of food to the different sorts of larvce. 

 They know how to change this food when an accident has deprived 

 the hive of its queen, and it is necessary to replace her; this is 

 another proof of intelligence. 



But it is, above all, in the face of an enemy that the intellectual 

 faculties of these insects show themselves. There are always at the 

 entrance of every hive tliree or four bees, which have nothing else to 



