SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



II 



habits. It scrapes a small cavity in the earth, of 

 which it makes a home. The interior is lined with 

 its soft web. It then kneads small quantities of 

 earth to make a door. These doors are composed 

 of alternate layers of spider's silk and soil, usually 

 fifteen of ^Tch. These layers of silk are so united 

 to the lining of the wall as to form a self-closing 

 hinge. The mason sinder never weaves a web like 

 the garden spider, and the garden spider never be- 

 comes a mason. Each species is confined to its 

 own special activities. 



In this inborn ability of the spider, and espe- 

 cially in the necessary connection between the 

 secretion of the substance of the thread and the 

 construction of the web, we have a manifestation 

 of instinct. The spider weaves its web as the 

 bird builds its nest, but it produces the material, 

 while the bird borrows it. The spider is an ani- 

 mated loom, a machine functioned for automatic 

 action. It requires no engineer to control its 

 movements. The spider is unable to avoid the 

 necessity of weaving ; the spinning of its web is 

 a necessity of its being. 



Bees. 



The same fatality and necessitv are found in the 

 instinct of the bee. This interesting creature 



Spix.vERET OF Spider (Magnified). 



secretes the wax of which its cells are made. It is 

 not prepared from any extraneous material ; it is 

 a natural product. The insect's will, if that be 

 imaginable, has no share in its production, no 

 more than in anv other excretion or secretion. The 

 wax exudes spontaneously from between the seg- 

 ments of the abdomen. 



Among insects the body is divided into three 

 parts — the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. 

 They have six feet, compound eyes, and two an- 

 tennae, these two latter being analogous to delicate 

 horns, and serving, as some think, the purpose of 

 "feelers." Many are provided with wings, and 

 all undergo a process of metamorphosis more or 

 less complete. That is, when the voung emerge 

 from the egg they have not that definition under 

 which they are familiar to us. Thus the butterfly 

 begins active life as a caterpillar, and the bee as a 

 tiny grub. 



Among hive bees instinct is manifested from 

 the dawn of their existence, in the social habit. A 

 single female gives birth to an entire population, 

 numbering no less than from eight to ten thousand 



individuals. That numerous progeny is reared in 

 the same hive, and never separates on reaching the 

 adult stale. They form a new society or swarm of 

 their own. Association is the absolute condition 

 of their existence and of the execution of their 

 various labours. Nothing can possibly destroy the 

 obligatory nature of their communal life. We 

 never see a solitary bee construct a hive and pre- 

 pare honey, although it would be well able to pro- 

 duce both wax and honey. Besides, we may ask, 

 for whom is all this labour — for whom the hive 

 and the honey? What is the motive of their inge- 

 nious and resourceful activity, if not the rearing 

 the young members of the community? The 

 female bee must be impregnated, and her fertility 

 producing several thousand eggs, a single pair of 

 bees would never suffice to feed and give attention 

 to ten thousand young ones. Association is there- 

 fore absolutely necessary. No parliament con- 

 ceived and formulated their statutes. They are 

 coeval with their own existence. 



There are occasions when animals -form associa- 

 tions which appear to be the result of deliberation. 

 Beavers associate, for instance, to construct their 

 huts and dams ; wolves, when driven by hunger, 

 concentrate their forces to attack a more formid- 

 able enemv; birds assemble to perform their 

 annual migrations. There are, we admit, associa- 

 tions provoked by necessity either for defence or 

 attack, or to satisfy a pressing need, or to avoid a 

 particular danger. The wolf once satisfied, the 

 swallow arrived at the end of his journey, the 

 beaver having achieved his purpose — in a word, 

 when the want has been supplied, the danger re- 

 moved, and the difficulty overcome, the social 

 state is dissolved, and the animals return to their 

 ordinary modes of existence. The social state of 

 the bee, on the contrary, is permanent, because the 

 whole economy of the hive depends upon their 

 social constitution. 



For ages, poets and naturalists have vied with 

 each other in their descriptions of the bee. The 

 fourth Georgic of Virgil is a treatise on the 

 management of bees. Their habits, economy, 

 polity, and governftient, are described with the 

 utmost fidelity, and with all the charm of poetry. 



Foot of Spider (Magnified). 



In minor matters Virgil is not quite accurate, b-it 

 how could he be otherwise, ages before the micro- 

 scope? The habits of the bees, however, were the 

 same in his day, as now. They have always been 

 subject to inflexible laws. 



The instinctive characters of the bee are well 

 seen in the construction of the comb. This case 



B4 



