130 Unconscious Memory 



afterwards small plates of wax had formed under their 

 bellies. The bee drew these off with her hind- feet, masti- 

 cated them, and made them into a band. The small plates 

 of wax thus prepared were then glued to the roof of the 

 hive one on the top of the other. When one of the bees 

 of this kind had used up her plates of wax, another fol- 

 lowed her and carried the same work forward in the same 

 way. A thin rough vertical wall, half a line in thickness 

 and fastened to the sides of the hive, was thus constructed. 

 On this, one of the smaller working-bees whose belly was 

 empty came, and after surveying the wall, made a flat 

 half-oval excavation in the middle of one of its sides ; she 

 piled up the wax thus excavated round the edge of the 

 excavation. After a short time she was relieved by another 

 like herself, till more than twenty followed one another in 

 this way. ]\Ieanwhile another bee began to make a similar 

 hollow on the other side of the wall, but corresponding 

 only with the rim of the excavation on this side. Pre- 

 sently another bee began a second hollow upon the same 

 side, each bee being continuall}' relieved by others. Other 

 bees kept coming up and bringing under their bellies 

 plates of wax, with which they heightened the edge of the 

 small wall of wax. In this, new bees were constantly ex- 

 cavating the ground for more cells, while others proceeded 

 by degrees to bring those already begun into a perfectly 

 S3'mmetrical shape, and at the same time continued build- 

 ing up the prismatic walls between them. Thus the bees 

 worked on opposite sides of the wall of wax, always on 

 the same plan and in the closest correspondence with 

 those upon the other side, until eventually the cells on 

 both sides were completed in all their wonderful regularity 

 and harmony of arrangement, not merely as regards those 

 standing side by side, but also as regards those which were 

 upon the other side of their pyramidal base. 



Let the reader consider how animals that are accustomed 

 to confer together, by speech or otherwise, concerning de- 

 signs which they may be pursuing in common, will wrangle 



