354 OBJECTIONS TO THE THEOEY [Chap. Vni. 



section ; the bees, of course, no more knowing that they 

 swept their spheres at one particular distance from each 

 other, than they know what are the several angles of the 

 hexagonal prisms and of the basal rhombic plates ; the 

 motive power of the process of natural selection having 

 been the construction of cells of due strength and of 

 the proper size and shape for the larvae, this being 

 effected with the greatest possible economy of labour 

 and wax ; that individual swarm which thus made the 

 best cells with least labour, and least waste of honey 

 in the secretion of wax, having succeeded best, and 

 having transmitted their newly-acquired economical 

 instincts to new swarms, which in their turn will 

 have had the best chance of succeeding in the struggle 

 for existence. 



Objections to the Tlicory of Natural Selection as applied 

 to Instincts : Neuter and Sterile Insects. 



It has been objected to the foregoing view of the origin 

 of instincts that " the variations of structure and of in- 

 stinct must have been simultaneous and accurately 

 adjusted to each other, as a modification in the one 

 without an immediate corresponding change in the other 

 would have been fatal." The force of this objection 

 rests entirely on the assumption that the changes in the 

 instincts and structure are abrupt. To take as an illus- 

 tration the case of the larger titmouse (Paras major) 

 alluded to in a previous chapter ; this bird often holds 

 the seeds of the yew between its feet on a branch, and 

 hammers with its beak till it gets at the kernel. Now 

 what special difficulty would there be in natural selec- 

 tion preserving all the slight individual variations in 

 the shape of the beak, which were better and better 



