The Progress of the Race 
102 
Let us consider first of all the most im- 
portant and most radical improvement, one 
that in the case of man would have called 
for prodigious labour: the external protec- 
tion of the community. 
The bees do not, like ourselves, dwell in 
towns free to the sky and exposed to the 
caprice of rain and storm, but in cities 
entirely covered with a protecting envelope. 
In a state of nature, however, in an ideal 
climate, this is not thecase. If they listened 
only to their essential instinct, they would 
construct their combs in the open air. In the 
Indies the Apis dorsata will not eagerly seek 
hollow trees or a hole in the rocks. The 
swarm will hang from the crook of a branch, 
and the comb will be lengthened, the queen’s 
eggs be laid, provisions be stored, with no 
shelter other than that which the workers’ 
own bodies provide. Our Northern bees 
have at times been known to revert to this 
instinct under the deceptive influence of a 
too gentle sky, and swarms have been found 
living in the heart of a bush. 
305 U 
