THE PROGRESS OF THE RACE 205 



occupied solely with the maintenance of the heat required 

 by those who are moulding the wax and rearing the brood, 

 that the Apis dorsata, hanging thus from the branches, will 

 construct but a single comb ; whereas if she have the least 

 shelter, she will erect four or five or more, and will pro- 

 portionately increase the prosperity and population of the 

 colony. And indeed we find that all species of bees existing 

 in cold and temperate regions have abandoned this primitive 

 method. The intelligent initiative of the insect has evidently 

 received the sanction of natural selection, which has allowed 

 only the most numerous and best protected tribes to survive 

 our winters. What had merely been an idea, therefoi'e, and 

 opposed to instinct, has thus by slow degrees become an 

 instinctive habit. But it is none the less true that in forsak- 

 ing the vast light of nature that was so dear to them and 

 seeking shelter in the obscure hollow of a tree or a cavern, the 

 bees have followed what at first was an audacious idea, based 

 on observation, probably, on experience and reasoning. And 

 this idea might be almost declared to have been as important 

 to the destinies of the domestic bee as was the invention of 

 fire to the destinies of man. 



103 



This great progress, not the less actual for being heredi- 

 tary and ancient, was followed by an infinite variety of 

 details which prove that the industry, and even the policy, 

 of the hive have not crystallised into infrangible formula. 

 We have already mentioned the intelligent substitution of 

 flour for pollen, and of an artificial cement for propolis. 



