134 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



telegraphy on a sensitive plate wrongly set. That we 

 can see no evidence of conscious organisation, or of the 

 transmission of ideas, does not prove that work under- 

 taken jointly is not concerted. In the case of bees 

 and ants there is evidence of communication by con- 

 tact and touch ; but many of the more important acts 

 of the community are done without visible communi- 

 cation. There is not the slightest reason to conclude 

 from this that they do not communicate. Two wrens 

 are building a nest in a bank. They settle, without 

 conversation of any kind, that they will make the 

 whole of the outside of dead leaves, to match other 

 masses of dead leaves which have been drifted into 

 corners of the bank. The same pair of wrens next 

 year make their nest in a haystack, and decide to 

 make the whole exterior of hay, to match the sur- 

 roundings. It is an intellectual process, understood 

 by both, carried into action jointly, and without visible 

 communication. 



Two years ago some bees swarmed near Holkham 

 Park. The whole swarm took flight, and traversed 

 the park at a considerable height, followed by their 

 owner, who kept them well in sight. They flew 

 on, above the tree- tops, until they came over a 

 certain oak, when the whole flight dropped like a 

 flock of starlings, and entered a small hole leading 

 into a hollow in this tree. They went " in a bee-line " 

 for the tree from the hive in the garden whence they 

 came. No one could possibly credit that there was 

 not some bee to take them there, who had been there 

 before, or that the swarm did not know what they 



