2o6 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



We have seen with what skill the bees are able to adapt 

 to their needs the occasionally disconcerting dwellings into 

 which they are introduced, and the surprising adroitness 

 wherewith they turn combs of foundation wax to good 

 account. They display extraordinary ingenuity in their 

 manner of handling these marvellous combs, which are so 

 strangely useful and yet incomplete. In point of fact, they 

 meet man half-way. Let us imagine that we had for 

 centuries past been erecting cities, not with stone, bricks, 

 and lime, but with some pliable substance painfully secreted 

 by special organs of our body. One day an all-powerful 

 being places us in the midst of a fabulous city. We recog- 

 nise that it is made of a substance similar to the one that 

 we secrete ; but, as regards the rest it is a dream, whereof 

 what is logical is so distorted, so reduced and, as it were, 

 concentrated, as to be more disconcerting almost than had 

 it been incoherent. Our habitual plan is there ; in fact, we 

 find everything that we had expected ; but all has been put 

 together by some antecedent force that would seem to have 

 crushed it, arrested it in the mould, and to have hindered 

 its completion. The houses, whose height must attain some 

 four or five yards, are the merest protuberances that our 

 two hands can cover. Thousands of walls are indicated by 

 signs that hint at once of their plan and material. Else- 

 where there are marked deviations which must be corrected, 

 gaps to be filled and harmoniously joined to the rest, vast 

 surfaces that are unstable and will need support. The enter- 

 prise is hopeful, but full of hardship and danger. It would 

 seem to have been conceived by some sovereign intelligence 

 that was able to divine most of our desires, but has executed 



