45 



words, that their opposite instincts were " coming into play" at 

 one and the same time, in one and the same community. You 

 caii, no doubt, at once see the probability of it just as I do that, 

 in fact, sterility came from fertility, sterile grandchildren from 

 fertile parents and grandparents, and, vice versd, a still more 

 fertile queen from the same source. This is one of the ways in 

 which I prove my theory. Allow me to be judge. 



I believe, as I said, that a "slight modification hi instinct 

 # * # * nas b een advantageous to the community." I 

 cannot deny that this is, in fact, to beg the whole question, a 

 u change of instinct" being only an idea suitable to a fairy tale, 

 but by me thought as easy a thing as for one to open and shut 

 a book. How can I doubt, since it suits my theory, that at the 

 proper moment "certain members of the community" foresaw the 

 benefit to it of sterility, and were so very accommodating and 

 obliging as to agree to have sterile grandchildren all but some 

 one who remained fertile to the admiration and loyalty of the rest 

 of the society ; but that's neither here nor there. 



I believe in the " long continued selection of the fertile 

 parents," but whom they were selected by I do not say, beyond 

 that it came to pass hi the " sequence of events." It is thus I 

 make words the factors of my system ; at all events it is all that 

 I have to say about it. 



I believe that the whole of the polity of the honey bee has 

 come to pass out of nothing at all of the kind, although the 

 figure of it is to been seen in Old JUgypt exactly the same as it 

 is to be seen now. But it must be as I say. Sic volo. 



I believe that u if the Mexican bee had made its spheres at 

 some given distance from each other," and " if she had made 

 them of equal sizes," and z/ she had " arranged them symmetri- 

 cally," and if she had made them " in a double layer," then the 

 comb would "probably " have been as perfect as the comb of the 

 hive-bee. All this, "*/ we could slightly modify the instincts 

 already possessed " by the Mexican bee. Then " we must suppose 

 her to make her cells truly spherical and of equal sizes ;" we 

 must suppose her "to arrange her cells in level layers;" "we 

 must suppose that she can somehow accurately judge as to what 



