548 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



imperfections. What would have been their astonishment if they had 

 been aware that part of these anomalies are calculated ; that there exists, 

 as it were, a moveable harmony in the mechanism by which the cells are 

 composed ? If in consequence of the imperfection of their organs, or of 

 their instruments, bees occasionally constructed some of the cells unequal, 

 or of parts badly put together, it would still manifest some talent to be able 

 to repair these defects, and to compensate one irregularity by another ; but 

 it is far more astonishing that they know how to quit their ordinary routine 

 when circumstances require that they should build male cells ; that they 

 should be instructed to vary the dimensions and the shape of each piece so 

 as to return to a regular order ; and that, after having constructed thirty 

 or forty ranges of male cells, they again leave the regular order on which 

 these were formed, and arrive by successive diminutions at the point from 

 which they set out. How should these insects be able to extricate them- 

 selves from such a difficulty from such a complicated structure ? how 

 pass from the little to the great, from a regular plan to an irregular one, 

 and again resume the former? These are questions which no known 

 system can explain. 1 



Here again, as observed in a former instance, the wonder would be less 

 if every comb contained a certain number of transition and of male cells, 

 constantly situated in one and the same part of it ; but this is far from 

 being the case. The event which alone, at whatever period it may happen, 

 seems to determine the bees to construct male cells, is the oviposition of 

 the queen. So long as she continues to lay the eggs of workers, not a male 

 cell is founded ; but as soon as she is about to lay male eggs, the workers 

 seem aware of it, and you then see them form their cells irregularly, impart 

 to them by degrees a greater diameter, and at length prepare suitable 

 ranges of cradles for all the male race. 8 You must perceive how absurd it 

 would be to refer this astonishing variation of instinct to any mere change 

 in the sensations of the bees; and to what far-fetched and gratuitous sup- 

 positions we must be reduced, if we adopt any such explanation. We can 

 but refer it to an instinct of which we know nothing; and so referring it, 

 can we help exclaiming with Huber, " Such is the grandeur of the views, 

 and of the means of ordaining wisdom, that it is not by a minute exactness 

 that she marches to her end, but proceeds from irregularity to irregularity, 

 compensating one by another: the admeasurements are made on high, the 

 apparent errors appreciated by a divine geometry ; and order often results 

 from partial diversity. This is not the first instance which science has pre- 

 sented to us of preordained irregularities which astonish our ignorance, and 

 are the admiration of the most enlightened minds. So true it is that the 

 more we investigate the general as well as particular laws of this vast 

 system, the more perfection does it present." 3 



It is observed by M. P. Huber, in his appendix to the account of his 

 father's discoveries relative to the architecture of bees, that in general the 

 form of the prisms or tubes of the cells is more essential than that of their 

 bottoms, since the tetrahedral-bottomed transition cells, and even those 

 cells which being built immediately upon wood or glass were entirely without 

 bottoms, still preserved their usual shape of hexagonal prisms. But a re- 

 markable experiment of the elder Huber shows that bees can alter even 



i Huber, ii. 221226. 244247. 2 Ibid. ii. 226. 



3 Ibid. ii. 230. 



