348 THE INSECT WORLD. 
Phocion under similar circumstances. “No,” replied his assistant 
naturalist, “you have said nothing but what is quite true; but, 
without meaning it, you have made a political allusion. You spoke 
against kings, and our young republicans thought that you were 
alluding to Louis XVI.” ‘Indeed,’ cried the coadjutor of 
Buffon, “I had no idea that I was talking politics!”? The bee 
republic, this little animal society, is admirably constituted, and 
all its citizens obey its laws with docility. . 
Bees have often served as an example, proving, according to 
some, the marvellous intelligence of certain little animals; accord- 
ing to others, an instinct wonderfully developed. For ourselves, 
we have never well understood what people mean by the word 
instinct ; and we frankly grant to the bee intelligence, as we do 
also to many animals. The greater number of the acts of their 
life seem to be the result of an idea, a mental deliberation, a 
determination come to after examination and reflection. The 
construction of their cells, always uniform, is, they say, the result 
of instinct. However, it happens that under particular circum- 
stances, these little architects know how to abandon the beaten 
track of routine, reserving to themselves the power of returning, 
when it is useful to do so, to the traditional principles which 
ensure the beauty and regularity of their constructions. Bees 
have been seen, indeed, to deviate from their ordinary habits in 
order to correct certain irregularities, the result of accident or 
produced by the intervention of man, which had deranged their 
works. 
Francis Huber relates that he saw bees propping up with 
pillars and flying buttresses of wax a piece of the honeycomb 
which had fallen down. At the same time, put on their guard by 
this sad accident, they set to work to fortify the principal frame- 
work of the other combs, and to fasten them more securely to the 
roof of the hive. This took place in the month of January, and 
therefore not during the working season, and when to provide 
against a distant eventuality was the only question. M. Walond 
has reported an analogous observation. Is there not here, in the 
first place, a true and excellent reasoning, then an act, an opera- 
tion, a work, executed as the result of this reasoning? Now, an 
operation which is performed as the result of reasoning, is attri- 
