The Progress of the Race 
of the colony. And indeed we find that 
all species of bees existing in cold and tem- 
perate regions have abandoned this primi- 
tive 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 been merely an idea, therefore, 
and opposed to instinct, has thus by slow 
degrees become an instinctive habit. But 
it is none the less true that in forsaking 
the vast light of nature that was so dear 
to them and seeking shelter in the ob- 
scure 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. 
375 
