12 THE INDUSTRIES OF ANIMALS. 



that an insect has just disgorged his honey, the 

 observer touches his belly with a straw; the little 

 animal, disturbed in his operation, returns to it having 

 only the second act to perform. But he re-commences 

 the whole of his operations though having nothing 

 more to disgorge ; he again plunges his head into the 

 cell and goes through a pretence of disgorging, then 

 turns round and frees himself from the pollen. 

 Although touched twice, thrice, or more frequently, he 

 always repeats the first action before executing the 

 second. It is, says Fabre, almost like the movement 

 of a machine of which the wheelwork will not act 

 until one has begun to turn the wheel which directs it. 



It is incontestable ; but I would add, as this con- 

 scientious observer does not, that that does not prove 

 that the intelligence of the insect differs essentially 

 from ours ; it is a simple question of degree. Look 

 at a boy who is going to jump over a ditch : he begins 

 by spitting into his hands and rubbing them one 

 against the other before taking his spring. In what 

 has this served him? It is not more intelligent than 

 the gesture of the bee who first plunges his head in 

 the cell before freeing his claws, although the first 

 gesture is useless.^ 



And, from another side, if nothing is more instinc- 

 tive than the manner in which domestic Bees con- 

 struct their cells of wax with geometric regularity, 

 there are other circumstances in which these same 



^ It should perhaps be added that while the boy's action is not con- 

 sciously intelligent, it is by no means purposeless, and is therefore not 

 quite parallel with the insect's. By vigorously irritating the sensory 

 nerves of the hand the boy imparts a stimulus to his muscular system. 

 His act belongs to a large group which has been especially studied 

 by F^re. See his Sensation et Mouvenient (18S7), and Pathologic des 

 Emotions (1892). 



