Instinct and Discernment 



with clay? Who would dare to indulge in any 

 such theories? Each Bee has her art, her 

 medium, to which she strictly confines herself. 

 The first has her leaves; the second her wad- 

 ding; the third her resin. None of these 

 guilds has ever changed trades with another; 

 and none ever will. There you have instinct, 

 keeping the workers to their specialities. 

 There are no innnovations in their work- 

 shops, no recipes resulting from experiment, 

 no ingenious devices, no progress from in- 

 different to good, from good to excellent. To- 

 day's method is the facsimile of yesterday's; 

 and to-morrow will know no other. 



But, though the manufacturing-process is 

 Invariable, the raw material is subject to 

 change. The plant that supplies the cotton 

 differs in species according to the locality; 

 the bush out of whose leaves the pieces will 

 be cut is not the same in the various fields of 

 operation; the tree that provides the resinous 

 putty may be a pine, a cypress, a juniper, a 

 cedar or a spruce, all very different in appear- 

 ance. What will guide the insect in its glean- 

 ing? Discernment. 



These, I think, are sufficient details of the 

 fundamental distinction to be drawn in the 



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