140 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLA Y 



can doubt that there is a mind somewhere behind 

 the astonishing finish and adaptation of bee-archi- 

 tecture and the social life of the hive. But of 

 the process of development there exists no trace. 

 We can only guess that it may have been so from 

 the analogy of other cases of the formation of an 

 instinct which have come within reach of human 

 experience. But there are numbers of bees which 

 make round honey cells, like pitchers, and which, 

 though presumably equally intelligent with the 

 hive bee, show no tendency to make their work 

 more perfect mechanically. In the case of the 

 moss-carding bee, the community may be supposed 

 to be even more intelligent than the honey bees ; 

 for the latter always seek a ready - made home, 

 while the moss-carder builds one for itself. If 

 instinct is to be regarded, not as a rudiment of 

 intelligence, but the result of a series of reasoned 

 acts, which by frequent repetition became habitual, 

 then reflex, and finally instinctive, the part played 

 by time in its production becomes of the first im- 

 portance. It does not matter whether the lives 

 of the creatures which at present perform acts by 

 instinct are long or short, if we grant the power 

 of hereditary transmission demanded by the theory. 

 The results of yearly experiments by successive 

 generations of bees or wasps, most of which die 



