CHAPTER VII.

NATURAL SELECTION IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE

HONEY-BEE.

THE received opinion of all ages as to the principle of Instinct is in direct opposition with the dogmas of the theory. What that theory teaches us on this subject we have now seen; and, as the aim of it is to get rid of the idea of a preordaining wisdom, arranging beforehand certain habits of life for animals, either in a social or a solitary condition, and adapting their organization for their pre-determined habits, here it is we take our stand, and boldly affirm that instinct is the result of pre-ordaining wisdom, and that certain creatures act in a certain way for their own benefit, not because the Sequence of Events has brought them to act in that way, but because they have been brought into existence so to act, and have no alternative but to act as they do.

Certain species have appeared on the scene for a certain object, and without their will or power of altering the arrangement, certain germs of life derived from themselves are developed, which inherit the qualities, faculties, and dispositions of the species, handing down to all ages the unalterable traditions of their race.

No animal can escape from the instinct of its species,

nor can modify it; the honey-bee always makes its honey and the comb to contain it by one invariable rule, and the "bird always constructs its nest after one pattern; the plan and pattern of the garden-spider's web is always the same.

The polity of the honey-bee is the same that it was in the days of Aristotle and of Homer, the same as in the age of the Vedas, the same as in the most ancient figure of the insect in the Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and the same as it was ages before any intelligible record could refer to its exist

ence.

To animals, whose habits are not stationary, and whose life is exposed to numberless vicissitudes, instinct has been given that by various provisions and contrivances they may be enabled to guard their species from danger; and by its careful reproduction, accomplish the place in nature assigned to them. They are actors of a drama which they must perform, and they come into the scene invested with the qualities and the talents requisite for the part which they must sustain.

In other words, instinct is creative power transmitted to created beings, and it is for this reason and in consequence of this origin of instinct that its manifestations remain unexplained. Creatures act in a certain wonderful way by an impulse which we cannot understand. It is one of those mysteries exhibited in nature which we must be content to accept as an uninterpreted fact, just as we see the magnetic needle turn to the pole, and cannot explain it.*

The stronger animals, which are well-armed and have

When a bee makes its nest geometrically, the geometry is not in the bee, but in that great Geometrician who made the bee, and made all things in number, weight, and measure.-Reid on the Active Powers, III. p. 1, cap. 2.

little to fear from other animals, have comparatively a small heritage of instinct; but when animals, which are weak as individuals, have a great work to perform in social compact, they are endowed with manifold instinct, and are sometimes formidable from their numbers.

Some animals, such as the rabbits, have a character of sociability, but the work assigned to them is little more than reproduction of their species. Their instinct, therefore, is insignificant.

The work chalked out for the ants, the vespidæ, and the bee is very great. They have to build a city, to sustain a large society in perfect order, to rear a numerous population, and to procure, by foraging, abundant provisions for the community. Each insect viewed as an individual is weak; but when a multitude of them act in concert for attack or defence, they are very formidable: and the instinct that prevails amongst all, constitutes the safeguard and welfare of all.

This instinct compels them to follow certain habits for certain objects; there is a distinct design in their polity, resulting in a constitution of their state as clearly defined as that of the demos of Athens, or the more complicated government of Sparta, and far more fixed and certain than our vaunted constitution, now unhappily in a state of transition from a moderated monarchy to an immoderate democracy.

It is probable that a principal object of the existence of the honey-bee, is for the fructification of flowers; and starting from this supposition, all the design would appear to be harmonious. In order to produce the effect, an insect would be required whose sole food would be the nectar of flowers; the nectar so gathered is in the insect's

stomach changed into honey, and regurgitated in its new form in the store-houses. The store-house must be a very numerous aggregate of chambers for the numerous society; the material for constructing the store-chambers is extracted from the food itself, elaborated by an act of secret chemistry. No chemist can produce wax out of honey, but this the bee accomplishes, and thus the insects in procuring their food, find also the material for their building. The building is always progressing in warm climates, and in temperate latitudes always during the summer months, both to enlarge the city for the reception of its increasing wealth, and for the wants of its increasing population.

The production of eggs, from which the whole population springs, is confined to one female, the fountain of life to the community.

Her sole occupation is reproduction of her species; the workers, therefore, imperfect females, are not burthened with gestation, and are free for all the multiplied labours of the city. They are labourers, builders, nurses, purveyors, soldiers, sentinels. They are also scavengers and ventilators of the city. The population is exceedingly dense in prosperous circumstances and favourable seasons, and the plan of the city is complicated, and the streets and passages narrow, but all proceeds with order, decorum, and regularity.

Even in the nests of wasps-a lair of free-booters—courtesy and consideration prevail amongst the population, and there is neither strife nor disorder within the precincts of their abode. The laws of the community are sustained in perfect harmony, and in all the bustle and crowding of a dense hive there is a perfect plan of general action, though the labours may be various, and many different objects

require their attention. It would be well for our cities and towns if a numerous police and vigilant magistracy could secure the public order as perfectly as in a bee-hive.

In the bee-hive there is no police, because every individual of the community keeps the peace by keeping itself in its proper place and attending to its duties. A strong impression of duty is one of the most striking manifestations of the instinct of the bee. There is no idleness, no robbery, no infraction of law, no resistance of authority. Each citizen contributes to the harmony of the whole, and all the community respect the queen-mother with most loyal attachment and devotedness.

The more there is to be done, the happier the bees are; industry is the joy of their existence, and that industry is exercised not for individual gratification, excepting as far as the contributing to the general welfare may be considered their reward.

At such a scene as this, Natural Selection must look with a malignant eye, for if it cannot calumniate and depreciate the realm of bees, the occupation of the Metaphor is gone, and it must betake itself to that limbo, large and broad, whither all things transitory and vain mount up as to their proper home.

We have seen how in the history furnished us by the theory, the bees have come to be divided into their actual ranks, and how the neuters have been brought into their present form by Natural Selection. We have now to consider the explanation offered us of the architecture of the honey-bee.

Mr Darwin's statement on this subject is given at great length, but the following may be taken as a correct epitome of what he says. He divides the architectural tendencies