606 The Reasoning Faculty of Animals. [ August, 
gradually strengthening the ability to run, it would be trans- 
mitted in an improved form through the birds which escaped by 
running, to their descendants, and finally be bequeathed to their 
posterity in the form in which we now find it. Such an explana- 
tion would apply to quail and grouse, and, in fact, to all birds 
which run as soon as hatched, and seek to hide themselves from 
their enemies in the grass and bushes. This instinct in young 
chickens is by no means so perfect as it might be; for any one 
who has noticed them when just hatched, and led by the hen, will 
have seen that they stumble and stagger, sometimes going head 
over heels in their efforts to pick something up. So that even if 
it were instinct, it is perfected by practice. 
Then again with the wasp. The one which provided best for 
its offspring, would leave the most descendants; and the faculty 
and the ability to provide would be transmitted from generation 
to generation, being improved each time by the natural laws of 
modification with descent, and by the struggle for existence. 50 
with the cells of the bee. Mathematicians have been struck with 
astonishment, and held up their hands in holy wonder, to see 
such an insignificant insect as a bee making a cell more mathe- 
matically accurate than they can after a lapse of 2000 years.’ But 
it was a matter of necessity to use as little material and occupy aS 
little space as possible with his cells, The ancient bees doubtless 
made their cells much less mathematically correct than the pres- 
ent ones are supposed to do.2 And it was only when the use of 
less wax, and of less space, gave one hive the advantage Over 
another in the struggle for existence, that the present cell began 
to appear. It was not made so because of the instinct of the bee, 
but because the laws of nature compelled it to be made so, if the 
bee would hold its own in the struggie. We know well that bees 
do not make their-cells always exactly alike, nor as exactly hex- 
agonal as we are often told. They depart from the regular shape, 
and use other forms to suit circumstances, and we have here 4 
‘Lord Brougham, “ Dialogues on. Instinct,” 1844, pp. 66-70. 
* Even the cells of the present hive bee are by no means perfect. In fact, a. 
gations by Professor Wyman, printed in the Proceedings of American Academy ‘ 
Arts and Sciences, vi1, 1866, have proved “ that the cells are all more or less Bit 
fect, and that an hexagonal cell, mathematically exact, does not exist in esi a 
only in theory.” Packard, “ Guide to Study of Insects,” 1869, pp. 123-127) W! 
see for an extended notice of Professor Wyman’s paper. 
_ §See Kirby and Spence, “ Introduction to Entomology.” Lond. ed. 1, 469- 
