134 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



combs in any other direction. We endeavoured to 

 puzzle them with a hive glazed above and below, so 

 that they had no place of support but the upright 

 sides of their dwelling; but, betaking themselves to 

 (he upper angle, they built their combs perpendicular 

 to one of these sides, and as regularly as those 

 which they usually build under a horizontal surface. 

 The foundations were laid on a place which does not 

 serve naturally for the base, yet, except in the dif- 

 ference of direction, the first row of cells resembled 

 those in ordinary hives, the others being distributed 

 on both faces, while the bottoms alternately corre- 

 sponded with the same symmetry. I put the bees to 

 a still greater trial. As they now testified their in- 

 clination to carry their combs, by the shortest way, 

 to the opposite side of the hive (for they prefer 

 uniting them to the wood, or a surface rougher than 

 glass), I covered it with a pane. Whenever this 

 smooth and slippery substance was interposed be- 

 tween them and the wood, they departed from the 

 straight line hitherto followed, and bent the struc- 

 ture of their comb at a right angle to what was al- 

 ready made, so that the prolongation of the extremity 

 might reach another side of the hive, which had been 

 left free. 



" Varying this experiment in several ways, I saw 

 the bees constantly change the direction of their 

 combs when I presented to them a surface too 

 smooth to admit of their clustering on it. They al- 

 ways sought the wooden sides. I thus compelled 

 them to curve the combs in the strangest shapes, by 

 placing a pane at a certain distance from their edges. 

 These results indicate a degree of instinct truly 

 wonderful. They denote even more than instinct: 

 for glass is not a substance against which bees can 

 be warned by nature. In trees, their natural abode, 

 there is nothing that resembles it, or with the same 



