INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



397 



themselves from such a difficulty — from such a complicated 

 structure? how pass from the little to the great, from a 

 regular plan to an irregular one, and again resume the 

 former? These are questions which no known system can 

 explain. 1 



Here again, as observed in a former instance, the wonder 

 would be less, if every comb contained a certain number of 

 transition and of male cells, constantly situated in one and 

 the same part of it; but this is far from being the case. 

 The event which alone, at whatever period it may happen, 

 seems to determine the bees to construct male cells, is the 

 oviposition of the queen. So long as she continues to lay 

 the eggs of workers, not a male cell is founded ; but as soon 

 as she is about to lay male eggs, the workers seem aware of 

 it, and you then see them form their cells irregularly, impart 

 to them by degrees a greater diameter, and at length prepare 

 suitable ranges of cradles for all the male race.' 2 You must 

 perceive how absurd it would be to refer this astonishing 

 variation of instinct to any mere change in the sensations of 

 the bees ; and to what far-fetched and gratuitous suppositions 

 we must be reduced, if we adopt any such explanation. We 

 can but refer it to an instinct of which we know nothing ; 

 and so referring it, can we help exclaiming with Huber, 

 " Such is the grandeur of the views, and of the means of 

 ordaining wisdom, that it is not by a minute exactness that 

 she marches to her end, but proceeds from irregularity to 

 irregularity, compensating one by another: the admeasure- 

 ments are made on high, the apparent errors appreciated by 

 a divine geometry ; and order often results from partial 

 diversity. This is not the first instance which science has 

 presented to us of preordained irregularities which astonish 

 our ignorance, and are the admiration of the most enlightened 

 minds. So true it is that the more we investigate the 

 general as well as particular laws of this vast system, the 

 more perfection does it present." 3 



It is observed by M. P. Huber, in his appendix to the 

 account of his father's discoveries relative to the architecture 



i Huber, ii. 221—226. 244—247. 2 Ibid. ii. 226. 



3 Ibid. ii. 230. 



