The Foundation of the City 
duty, or allowing itself to be baffled or 
discouraged by the strangeness of its sur- 
roundings;-except only in the case of the 
new dwelling being absolutely uninhabitable, 
or impregnated with evil odours. And 
even then the bees will not be disheartened 
or bewildered; even then they will not 
abandon their mission. The swarm will 
simply forsake the inhospitable abode, to 
seek better fortune some little distance 
away. And similarly it can never be said 
of them that they can be induced to under- 
take any illogical or foolish task. Their 
common sense has never been known to fail 
them; they have never, at a loss for definite 
decision, erected at haphazard structures of 
a wild or heterogeneous nature. Though 
you place the swarm in a sphere, a cube, 
or a pyramid, in an oval or polygonal 
basket, you will find, on visiting the bees 
a few days later, that if this strange as- 
sembly of little independent intellects has 
accepted the new abode, they will at once, 
and unhesitatingly, and unanimously, have 
known how to select the most favourable, 
often, humanly speaking, the only possible, 
117 
