346 SPECIAL INSTINCTS. [Chap. VIIL 



rately at what distance to stand from her fellow-labour- 

 ers when several are making their spheres; but she is 

 already so far enabled to judge of distance, that she 

 always describes her spheres so as to intersect to a cer- 

 tain extent; and then she unites the points of intersec- 

 tion by perfectly flat surfaces. By such modifications 

 of instincts which in themselves are not very wonderful, 

 — hardly more wonderful than those which guide a bird 

 to make its nest, — I believe that the hive-bee has ac- 

 quired, through natural selection, her inimitable archi- 

 tectural powers. 



But this theory can be tested by experiment. Fol- 

 lowing the example of Mr. Tegetmeier, I separated two 

 combs, and put between them a long, thick, rectangular 

 strip of wax: the bees instantly began to excavate min- 

 ute circular pits in it; and as they deepened these little 

 pits, they made them wider and wider until they were 

 converted into shallow basins, appearing to the eye per- 

 fectly true or parts of a sphere, and of about the diam- 

 eter of a cell. It was most interesting to observe that, 

 wherever several bees had begun to excavate these basins 

 near together, they had begun their work at such a dis- 

 tance from each other, that by the time the basins had 

 acquired the above-stated width (i. e. about the width of 

 an ordinary cell), and were in depth about one-sixth of 

 the diameter of the sphere of which they formed a part, 

 the rims of the basins intersected or broke into each 

 other. As soon as this occurred, the bees ceased to ex- 

 cavate, and began to build up fiat walls of wax on the 

 lines of intersection between the basins, so that each 

 hexagonal prism was built upon the scalloped edge of a 

 smooth basin, instead of on the straight edges of a 

 three-sided pyramid as in the case or ordinary cells. 



