The Foundation of the City . 
or beside these, or in producing useless 
wax, but, finding that the work is already 
half finished, they will be satisfied to 
deepen and lengthen each of the cells 
designed in the leaf, carefully rectifying 
these where there is the slightest deviation 
from the strictest vertical. Proceeding in 
this fashion, therefore, they will possess 
in a week a city as luxurious and well 
constructed as the one they have quitted ; 
whereas, had they been thrown on their 
own resources, it would have taken them 
two or three months to construct so great 
a profusion of dwellings and storehouses 
of shining wax. 
43 
This power of appropriation may well 
be considered to overstep the limit of in- 
stinct; and indeed there can be nothing 
more arbitrary than the distinction we draw 
between instinct and intelligence properly 
so called. Sir John Lubbock, whose ob- 
servations on ants, bees, and wasps are so 
interesting and so personal, is reluctant to 
119 
