312 SPECIAL INSTINCTS. [Chap. VIH. 



tionally reared would then follow their proper instincts, 

 and do what work they could. If their presence proved 

 useful to the species which had seized them — if it were 

 more advantageous to this species to capture workers 

 than to procreate them — the habit of collecting pupae, 

 originally for food, might by natural selection be 

 strengthened and rendered permanent for the very 

 different purpose of raising slaves. When the instinct 

 was once acquired, if carried out to a much less extent 

 even than in our British F. sanguinea, which, as we 

 have seen, is less aided bv its slaves than the same 

 species in Switzerland, natural selection might increase 

 and modify the instinct — always supposing each modifi- 

 cation to be of use to the species — until an ant was 

 formed as abjectly depeudent on its slaves as is the 

 Formica rufescens. 



Cell-making instinct of the Hive-Bee. — I will not here 

 enter on minute details on this subject, but will merely 

 give an outline of the conclusions at which I have arrived. 

 He must be a dull man who can examine the exquisite 

 structure of a comb, so beautifully adapted to its end, 

 without enthusiastic admiration. We hear from mathe- 

 maticians that bees have practically solved a recondite 

 problem, and have made their cells of the proper shape 

 to hold the greatest possible amount of honey, with the 

 least possible consumption of precious wax in their con- 

 struction. It has been remarked that a skilful work- 

 man with fitting tools and measures, would find it very 

 difficult to make cells of wax of the true form, though 

 this is effected by a crowd of bees working in a dark 

 hive. Granting whatever instincts you please, it seems 

 at first quite inconceivable how they can make all the 

 necessary angles and planes, or even perceive when they 



