212 OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY [CHAP. VI1L 



through the winter, and consequently required a store of honey: 

 there can in this case be no doubt that it would be an advantage 

 to our imaginary humble-bee, if a slight modification in her instincts 

 led her to make her waxen cells near together, so as to intersect a 

 little; for a wall in common even to two adjoining cells would save 

 some little labour and wax. Hence it would continually be more 

 and more advantageous to our humble-bees, if they were to make 

 their cells more and more regular, nearer together, and aggregated 

 into a mass, like the cells of the Melipona ; for in this case a large 

 part of the bounding surface of each cell would serve to bound the 

 adjoining cells, and much labour and wax would be saved. Again 

 from the same cause, it would be advantageous to the Melipona, if 

 she were to make her cells closer together, and more regular in 

 every way than at present ; for then, as we have seen, the spherical 

 surfaces would wholly disappear and be replaced by plane surfaces ; 

 and the Melipona would make a comb as perfect as that of the 

 hive-bee. Beyond this stage of perfection in architecture, natural 

 selection could not lead; for the comb of the hive-bee, as far 

 as we can see, is absolutely perfect in economising labour and 

 wax. 



Thus, as I believe, the most wonderful of all known instincts, 

 that of the hive-bee, can be explained by natural selection having 

 taken advantage of numerous, successive, slight modifications of 

 simpler instincts ; natural selection having, by slow degrees, more 

 and more perfectly led the bees to sweep equal spheres at a given 

 distance from each other in a double layer, and to build up and 

 excavate the wax along the planes of intersection ; the bees, of 

 course, no more knowing that they swept their spheres at one par- 

 ticular distance from each other, than they know what are the 

 several angles of the hexagonal prisms and of the basal rhombic 

 plates ; the motive power of the process of natural selection having 

 been the construction of cells of due strength and of the proper 

 size and shape for the larvie, this being effected with the greatest 

 possible economy of labour and wax ; that individual swarm which 

 thus made the best cells Avith least labour, and least waste of 

 honey in the secretion of wax, having succeeded best, and having 

 transmitted their newly acquired economical instincts to new 

 swarms, which in their turn will have had the best chance of suc- 

 ceeding in the struggle for existence. 



Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection as applied to 

 Instincts: Neuter and Sterile Insects. 



It has been objected to the foregoing view of the origin of 

 instincts that "the variations of structure and of instinct must 

 have been simultaneous and accurately adjusted to each other as 

 A modification in the one without an immediate corresponding 



