INSECTS IN GENERAL. 105 



sources in certain circumstances. We sometimes find a 

 honey-comb of a form altogether peculiar, with differently 

 shaped cells, and differently placed, and all adapted to some 

 new circumstance, which did not modify the construction 

 of the other combs. This is a matter of great surprise, and 

 nothing similar is observable in the phenomena of instinct in 

 other animals. The examples of this accommodation to cir- 

 cumstances are very numerous among the insect tribes, but 

 we must defer any detail of them, until we come to speak of 

 the orders separately. We shall find occasion to give many 

 curious instances of this, when vre come to treat of bees in 

 particular. 



This peculiarity of adaptation to circumstances, looks, on 

 first consideration, more like reason than instinct. On this 

 point, the observations of Mr. Spence are peculiarly excel- 

 lent. He remarks, in the first place, that these variations are 

 limited in extent. Insects have a certain number of re- 

 sources, but cannot increase them. Bees, for instance, cement 

 their combs to the top of the hive, when they are becoming 

 heavy, with mitys instead of wax, and there is no reason to 

 doubt that they did the same in the time of Aristotle and 

 Pliny. They also occasionally vary their procedures, secur- 

 ing the combs with wax, or with propolis, only added to the 

 upper range of cells, or arranged in braces and ties to the 

 adjoining combs. But they never employ other methods of 

 strengthening the combs, which might yet be considered ob- 

 vious enough. They do not use mud, for instance, instead 

 of wax or propolis, or mortar instead of mitys. Any instance 

 of this description, would be decidedly in favour of the 

 hypothesis of reason. But, considering that bees are confined 

 to the same limits in this respect that they were two thousand 

 years ago, and since the new-born perform all their opera- 

 tions as scientifically as the old, Mr. Spence justly considers 



