The laudator temperis acti is out of favour just now: the world is on
the move. Yes, but sometimes it moves backwards. When I was a boy, our
twopenny textbooks told us that man was a reasoning animal; nowadays,
there are learned volumes to prove to us that human reason is but a
higher rung in the ladder whose foot reaches down to the bottommost
depths of animal life. There is the greater and the lesser; there are
all the intermediary rounds; but nowhere does it break off and start
afresh. It begins with zero in the glair of a cell and ascends until we
come to the mighty brain of a Newton. The noble faculty of which we were
so proud is a zoological attribute. All have a larger or smaller share
of it, from the live atom to the anthropoid ape, that hideous caricature
of man.
It always struck me that those who held this levelling theory made facts
say more than they really meant; it struck me that, in order to obtain
their plain, they were lowering the mountain-peak, man, and elevating
the valley, the animal. Now this levelling of theirs needed proofs,
to my mind; and, as I found none in their books, or at any rate only
doubtful and highly debatable ones, I did my own observing, in order to
arrive at a definite conviction; I sought; I experimented.
To speak with any certainty, it behoves us not to go beyond what
we really know. I am beginning to have a passable acquaintance with
insects, after spending some forty years in their company. Let us
question the insect, then: not the first that comes along, but the most
gifted, the Hymenopteron. I am giving my opponents every advantage.
Where will they find a creature more richly endowed with talent? It
would seem as though, in creating it, nature had delighted in bestowing
the greatest amount of industry upon the smallest body of matter. Can
the bird, wonderful architect that it is, compare its work with that
masterpiece of higher geometry, the edifice of the Bee? The Hymenopteron
rivals man himself. We build towns, the Bee erects cities; we have
servants, the Ant has hers; we rear domestic animals, she rears her
sugar-yielding insects; we herd cattle, she herds her milch-cows,
the Aphides; we have abolished slavery, whereas she continues her
nigger-traffic.
Well, does this superior, this privileged being reason? Reader, do not
smile: this is a most serious matter, well worthy of our consideration.
To devote our attention to animals is to plunge at once into the vexed
question of who we are and whence we come. What, then, passes in that
little Hymenopteron brain? Has it faculties akin to ours, has it the
power of thought? What a problem, if we could only solve it; what a
chapter of psychology, if we could only write it! But, at our very
first questionings, the mysterious will rise up, impenetrable: we may be
convinced of that. We are incapable of knowing ourselves; what will it
be if we try to fathom the intellect of others? Let us be content if we
succeed in gleaning a few grains of truth.
What is reason? Philosophy would give us learned definitions. Let us be
modest and keep to the simplest: we are only treating of animals. Reason
is the faculty that connects the effect with its cause and directs
the act by conforming it to the needs of the accidental. Within these
limits, are animals capable of reasoning? Are they able to connect
a 'because' with a 'why' and afterwards to regulate their behaviour
accordingly? Are they able to change their line of conduct when faced
with an emergency?
History has but few data likely to be of use to us here; and those which
we find scattered in various authors are seldom able to withstand
a severe examination. One of the most remarkable of which I know is
supplied by Erasmus Darwin, in his book entitled "Zoonomia." It tells of
a Wasp that has just caught and killed a big Fly. The wind is blowing;
and the huntress, hampered in her flight by the great area presented by
her prize, alights on the ground to amputate the abdomen, the head and
the wings; she flies away, carrying with her only the thorax, which
gives less hold to the wind. If we keep to the bald facts, this does,
I admit, give a semblance of reason. The Wasp appears to grasp the
relation between cause and effect. The effect is the resistance
experienced in the flight; the cause is the dimensions of the prey
contending with the air. Hence the logical conclusion: those dimensions
must be lessened; the abdomen, the head and, above all, the wings must
be chopped off; and the resistance will be decreased. (I would gladly,
if I were able, cancel some rather hasty lines which I allowed myself
to pen in the first volume of these "Souvenirs" but scripta manent. All
that I can do is to make amends now, in this note, for the error into
which I fell. Relying on Lacordaire, who quotes this instance from
Erasmus Darwin in his own "Introduction a l'entomologie", I believed
that a Sphex was given as the heroine of the story. How could I do
otherwise, not having the original text in front of me? How could I
suspect that an entomologist of Lacordaire's standing should be capable
of such a blunder as to substitute a Sphex for a Common Wasp? Great was
my perplexity, in the face of this evidence! A Sphex capturing a Fly was
an impossibility; and I blamed the British scientist accordingly. But
what insect was it that Erasmus Darwin saw? Calling logic to my aid,
I declared that it was a Wasp; and I could not have hit the mark
more truly. Charles Darwin, in fact, informed me afterwards that his
grandfather wrote 'a Wasp' in his "Zoonomia." Though the correction did
credit to my intelligence, I none the less deeply regretted my mistake,
for I had uttered suspicions of the observer's powers of discernment,
unjust suspicions which the translator's inaccuracy led me into
entertaining. May this note serve to mitigate the harshness of the
strictures provoked by my overtaxed credulity! I do not scruple to
attack ideas which I consider false; but Heaven forfend that I should
ever attack those who uphold them!--Author's Note.)
But does this concatenation of ideas, rudimentary though it be, really
take place within the insect's brain? I am convinced of the contrary;
and my proofs are unanswerable. In the first volume of these "Souvenirs"
(Cf. "Insect Life": chapter 9.--Translator's Note.), I demonstrated
by experiment that Erasmus Darwin's Wasp was but obeying her instinct,
which is to cut up the captured game and to keep only the most
nourishing part, the thorax. Whether the day be perfectly calm or
whether the wind blow, whether she be in the shelter of a dense thicket
or in the open, I see the Wasp proceed to separate the succulent from
the tough; I see her reject the legs, the wings, the head and the
abdomen, retaining only the breast as pap for her larvae. Then what
value has this dissection as an argument in favour of the insect's
reasoning-powers when the wind blows? It has no value at all, for it
would take place just the same in absolutely calm weather. Erasmus
Darwin jumped too quickly to his conclusion, which was the outcome of
his mental bias and not of the logic of things. If he had first enquired
into the Wasp's habits, he would not have brought forward as a serious
argument an incident which had no connection with the important question
of animal reason.
I have reverted to this case to show the difficulties that beset the man
who confines himself to casual observations, however carefully carried
out. One should never rely upon a lucky chance, which may not occur
again. We must multiply our observations, check them one with the other;
we must create incidents, looking into preceding ones, finding out
succeeding ones and working out the relation between them all: then and
not till then, with extreme caution, are we entitled to express a few
views worthy of credence. Nowhere do I find data collected under such
conditions; for which reason, however much I might wish it, it is
impossible for me to bring the evidence of others in support of the few
conclusions which I myself have formed.
My Mason-bees, with their nests hanging on the walls of the arch which I
have mentioned, lent themselves to continuous experiment better than any
other Hymenopteron. I had them there, at my house, under my eyes, at
all hours of the day, as long as I wished. I was free to follow their
actions in full detail and to carry out successfully any experiment,
however long. Moreover, their numbers allowed me to repeat my attempts
until I was perfectly convinced. The Mason-bees, therefore, shall supply
me with the materials for this chapter also.
A few words, before I begin, about the works. The Mason-bee of the Sheds
utilizes, first of all, the old galleries of the clay nest, a part of
which she good-naturedly abandons to two Osmiae, her free tenants: the
Three-horned Osmia and Latreille's Osmia. These old corridors, which
save labour, are in great demand; but there are not many vacant, as the
more precocious Osmiae have already taken possession of most of them;
and therefore the building of new cells soon begins. These cells are
cemented to the surface of the nest, which thus increases in thickness
every year. The edifice of cells is not built all at once: mortar and
honey alternate repeatedly. The masonry starts with a sort of little
swallow's nest, a half-cup or thimble, whose circumference is completed
by the wall against which it rests. Picture the cup of an acorn cut in
two and stuck to the surface of the nest: there you have the receptacle
in a stage sufficiently advanced to take a first instalment of honey.
The Bee thereupon leaves the mortar and busies herself with harvesting.
After a few foraging-trips, the work of building is resumed; and some
new rows of bricks raise the edge of the basin, which becomes capable
of receiving a larger stock of provisions. Then comes another change of
business: the mason once more becomes a harvester. A little later, the
harvester is again a mason; and these alternations continue until the
cell is of the regulation height and holds the amount of honey required
for the larva's food. Thus come, turn and turn about, more or less
numerous according to the occupation in hand, journeys to the dry and
barren path, where the cement is gathered and mixed, and journeys to
the flowers, where the Bee's crop is crammed with honey and her belly
powdered with pollen.
At last comes the time for laying. We see the Bee arrive with a pellet
of mortar. She gives a glance at the cell to enquire if everything is in
order; she inserts her abdomen; and the egg is laid. Then and there
the mother seals up the home: with her pellet of cement she closes the
orifice and manages so well with the material that the lid receives its
permanent form at this first sitting; it has only to be thickened and
strengthened with fresh layers, a work which is less urgent and will
be done by and by. What does appear to be an urgent necessity is the
closing of the cell immediately after the egg has been religiously
deposited therein, so that there may be no danger from evilly-disposed
visitors during the mother's absence. The Bee must have serious reasons
for thus hurrying on the closing of the cell. What would happen if,
after laying her egg, she left the house open and went to the cement-pit
to fetch the wherewithal to block the door? Some thief might drop in
and substitute her own egg for the Mason-bee's. We shall see that our
suspicions are not uncalled-for. One thing is certain, that the Mason
never lays without having in her mandibles the pellet of mortar required
for the immediate construction of the lid of the nest. The precious
egg must not for a single instant remain exposed to the cupidity of
marauders.
To these particulars I will add a few general observations which will
make what follows easier to understand. So long as its circumstances are
normal, the insect's actions are calculated most rationally in view of
the object to be attained. What could be more logical, for instance,
than the devices employed by the Hunting Wasp when paralysing her prey
(Cf. "Insect Life": chapters 3 to 12 and 15 to 17.--Translator's Note.)
so that it may keep fresh for her larva, while in no wise imperilling
that larva's safety? It is preeminently rational; we ourselves could
think of nothing better; and yet the Wasp's action is not prompted by
reason. If she thought out her surgery, she would be our superior. It
will never occur to anybody that the creature is able, in the smallest
degree, to account for its skilful vivisections. Therefore, so long
as it does not depart from the path mapped out for it, the insect can
perform the most sagacious actions without entitling us in the least to
attribute these to the dictates of reason.
What would happen in an emergency? Here we must distinguish carefully
between two classes of emergency, or we shall be liable to grievous
error. First, in accidents occurring in the course of the insect's
occupation at the moment. In these circumstances, the creature is
capable of remedying the accident; it continues, under a similar form,
its actual task; it remains, in short; in the same psychic condition.
In the second case, the accident is connected with a more remote
occupation; it relates to a completed task with which, under normal
conditions, the insect is no longer concerned. To meet this emergency,
the creature would have to retrace its psychic course; it would have
to do all over again what it has just finished, before turning its
attention to anything else. Is the insect capable of this? Will it be
able to leave the present and return to the past? Will it decide to hark
back to a task that is much more pressing than the one on which it was
engaged? If it did all this, then we should really have evidence of a
modicum of reason. The question shall be settled by experiment.
We will begin by taking a few incidents that come under the first
heading. A Mason-bee has finished the initial layer of the covering of
the cell. She has gone in search of a second pellet of mortar wherewith
to strengthen her work. In her absence, I prick the lid with a needle
and widen the hole thus made, until it is half the size of the opening.
The insect returns and repairs the damage. It was originally engaged on
the lid and is merely continuing its work in mending that lid.
A second is still at her first row of bricks. The cell as yet is no more
than a shallow cup, containing no provisions. I make a big hole in the
bottom of the cup and the Bee hastens to stop the breach. She was busy
building and turned aside a moment to do more building. Her repairs are
the continuation of the work on which she was engaged.
A third has laid her egg and closed the cell. While she is gone in
search of a fresh supply of cement to strengthen the door, I make a
large aperture immediately below the lid, too high up to allow the
honey to escape. The insect, on arriving with its mortar intended for
a different task, sees its broken jar and soon puts the damage right.
I have rarely witnessed such a sensible performance. Nevertheless, all
things considered, let us not be too lavish of our praises. The insect
was busy closing up. On its return, it sees a crack, representing in its
eyes a bad join which it had overlooked; it completes its actual task by
improving the join.
The conclusion to be drawn from these three instances, which I select
from a large number of others, more or less similar, is that the insect
is able to cope with emergencies, provided that the new action be not
outside the course of its actual work at the moment. Shall we say then
that reason directs it? Why should we? The insect persists in the same
psychic course, it continues its action, it does what it was doing
before, it corrects what to it appears but a careless flaw in the work
of the moment.
Here, moreover, is something which would change our estimate entirely,
if it ever occurred to us to look upon these repaired breaches as a
work dictated by reason. Let us turn to the second class of emergency
referred to above: let us imagine, first, cells similar to those in the
second experiment, that is to say, only half-finished, in the form of a
shallow cup, but already containing honey. I make a hole in the bottom,
through which the provisions ooze and run to waste. Their owners
are harvesting. Let us imagine, on the other hand, cells very nearly
finished and almost completely provisioned. I perforate the bottom in
the same way and let out the honey, which drips through gradually. The
owners of these are building.
Judging by what has gone before, the reader will perhaps expect to see
immediate repairs, urgent repairs, for the safety of the future larva is
at stake. Let him dismiss any such illusion: more and more journeys are
undertaken, now in quest of food, now in quest of mortar; but not one of
the Mason-bees troubles about the disastrous breach. The harvester goes
on harvesting; the busy bricklayer proceeds with her next row of bricks,
as though nothing out of the way had happened. Lastly, if the injured
cells are high enough and contain enough provisions, the Bee lays her
eggs, puts a door to the house and passes on to another house, without
doing aught to remedy the leakage of the honey. Two or three days later,
those cells have lost all their contents, which now form a long trail on
the surface of the nest.
Is it through lack of intelligence that the Bee allows her honey to go
to waste? May it not rather be through helplessness? It might happen
that the sort of mortar which the Mason has at her disposal will not set
on the edges of a hole that is sticky with honey. The honey may prevent
the cement from adjusting itself to the orifice, in which case the
insect's inertness would merely be resignation to an irreparable evil.
Let us look into the matter before drawing inferences. With my forceps,
I deprive the Bee of her pellet of mortar and apply it to the hole
whence the honey is escaping. My attempt at repairing meets with the
fullest success, though I do not pretend to compete with the Mason
in dexterity. For a piece of work done by a man's hand it is quite
creditable. My dab of mortar fits nicely into the mutilated wall;
it hardens as usual; and the escape of honey ceases. This is quite
satisfactory. What would it be had the work been done by the insect,
equipped with its tools of exquisite precision? When the Mason-bee
refrains, therefore, this is not due to helplessness on her part, nor to
any defect in the material employed.
Another objection presents itself. We are going too far perhaps in
admitting this concatenation of ideas in the insect's mind, in expecting
it to argue that the honey is running away because the cell has a hole
in it and that to save it from being wasted the hole must be stopped.
So much logic perhaps exceeds the powers of its poor little brain.
Then, again, the hole is not seen; it is hidden by the honey trickling
through. The cause of that stream of honey is an unknown cause; and
to trace the loss of the liquid home to that cause, to the hole in the
receptacle, is too lofty a piece of reasoning for the insect.
A cell in the rudimentary cup-stage and containing no provisions has a
hole, three or four millimetres (.11 to.15 inch.--Translator's Note.)
wide, made in it at the bottom. A few moments later, this orifice is
stopped by the Mason. We have already witnessed a similar patching. The
insect, having finished, starts foraging. I reopen the hole at the same
place. The pollen runs through the aperture and falls to the ground
as the Bee is rubbing off her first load in the cell. The damage is
undoubtedly observed. When plunging her head into the cup to take stock
of what she has stored, the Bee puts her antennae into the artificial
hole: she sounds it, she explores it, she cannot fail to perceive it.
I see the two feelers quivering outside the hole. The insect notices the
breach in the wall: that is certain. It flies off. Will it bring back
mortar from its present journey to repair the injured jar as it did just
now?
Not at all. It returns with provisions, it disgorges its honey, it rubs
off its pollen, it mixes the material. The sticky and almost solid mass
fills up the opening and oozes through with difficulty. I roll a spill
of paper and free the hole, which remains open and shows daylight
distinctly in both directions. I sweep the place clear over and over
again, whenever this becomes necessary because new provisions are
brought; I clean the opening sometimes in the Bee's absence, sometimes
in her presence, while she is busy mixing her paste. The unusual
happenings in the warehouse plundered from below cannot escape her any
more than the ever-open breach at the bottom of the cell. Nevertheless,
for three consecutive hours, I witness this strange sight: the Bee, full
of active zeal for the task in hand, omits to plug this vessel of the
Danaides. She persists in trying to fill her cracked receptacle,
whence the provisions disappear as soon as stored away. She constantly
alternates between builder's and harvester's work; she raises the edges
of the cell with fresh rows of bricks; she brings provisions which I
continue to abstract, so as to leave the breach always visible. She
makes thirty-two journeys before my eyes, now for mortar, now for honey,
and not once does she bethink herself of stopping the leakage at the
bottom of her jar.
At five o'clock in the evening, the works cease. They are resumed on
the morrow. This time, I neglect to clean out my artificial orifice and
leave the victuals gradually to ooze out by themselves. At length, the
egg is laid and the door sealed up, without anything being done by the
Bee in the matter of the disastrous breach. And yet to plug the hole
were an easy matter for her: a pellet of her mortar would suffice.
Besides, while the cup was still empty, did she not instantly close the
hole which I had made? Why are not those early repairs of hers repeated?
It clearly shows the creature's inability to retrace the course of its
actions, however slightly. At the time of the first breach, the cup was
empty and the insect was laying the first rows of bricks. The accident
produced through my agency concerned the part of the work which occupied
the Bee at the actual moment; it was a flaw in the building, such as can
occur naturally in new courses of masonry, which have not had time to
harden. In correcting that flaw, the Mason did not go outside her usual
work.
But, once the provisioning begins, the cup is finished for good and all;
and, come what may, the insect will not touch it again. The harvester
will go on harvesting, though the pollen trickle to the ground through
the drain. To plug the hole would imply a change of occupation of which
the insect is incapable for the moment. It is the honey's turn and not
the mortar's. The rule upon this point is invariable. A moment comes,
presently, when the harvesting is interrupted and the masoning resumed.
The edifice must be raised a storey higher. Will the Bee, once more a
builder, mixing fresh cement, now attend to the leakage at the bottom?
No more than before. What occupies her at present is the new floor,
whose brickwork would be repaired at once, if it sustained a damage;
but the bottom storey is too old a part of the business, it is ancient
history; and the worker will not put a further touch to it, even though
it be in serious danger.
For the rest, the present and the following storeys will all have
the same fate. Carefully watched by the insect as long as they are in
process of building, they are forgotten and allowed to go to ruin once
they are actually built. Here is a striking instance: in a cell which
has attained its full height, I make a window, almost as large as the
natural opening, and place it about half-way up, above the honey.
The Bee brings provisions for some time longer and then lays her egg.
Through my big window, I see the egg deposited on the victuals. The
insect next works at the cover, to which it gives the finishing touches
with a series of little taps, administered with infinite care, while the
breach remains yawning. On the lid, it scrupulously stops up every pore
that could admit so much as an atom; but it leaves the great opening
that places the house at the mercy of the first-comer. It goes to that
breach repeatedly, puts in its head, examines it, explores it with its
antennae, nibbles the edges of it. And that is all. The mutilated cell
shall stay as it is, with never a dab of mortar. The threatened part
dates too far back for the Bee to think of troubling about it.
I have said enough, I think, to show the insect's mental incapacity in
the presence of the accidental. This incapacity is confirmed by renewing
the test, an essential condition of all good experiments; therefore
my notes are full of examples similar to the one which I have just
described. To relate them would be mere repetition; I pass them over for
the sake of brevity.
The renewal of a test is not sufficient: we must also vary our test. Let
us, then, examine the insect's intelligence from another point of view,
that of the introduction of foreign bodies into the cell. The Mason-bee
is a housekeeper of scrupulous cleanliness, as indeed are all the
Hymenoptera. Not a spot of dirt is suffered in her honey-pot; not a
grain of dust is permitted on the surface of her mixture. And yet, while
the jar is open, the precious Bee-bread is exposed to accidents. The
workers in the cells above may inadvertently drop a little mortar into
the lower cells; the owner herself, when working at enlarging the jar,
runs the risk of letting a speck of cement fall into the provisions.
A Gnat, attracted by the smell, may come and be caught in the honey;
brawls between neighbours who are getting into each other's way may
send some dust flying thither. All this refuse has to disappear and that
quickly, lest afterwards the larva should find coarse fare under its
delicate mandibles. Therefore the Mason-bees must be able to cleanse the
cell of any foreign body. And, in point of fact, they are well able to
do so.
I place on the surface of the honey five or six bits of straw
a millimetre in length. (.039 inch.--Translator's Note.) Great
astonishment on the part of the returning insect. Never before have so
many sweepings accumulated in its warehouse. The Bee picks out the bits
of straw, one by one, to the very last, and each time goes and gets rid
of them at a distance. The effort is out of all proportion to the work:
I see the Bee soar above the nearest plane-tree, to a height of thirty
feet, and fly away beyond it to rid herself of her burden, a mere atom.
She fears lest she should litter the place by dropping her bit of straw
on the ground, under the nest. A thing like that must be carried very
far away.
I place upon the honey-paste a Mason-bee's egg which I myself saw
laid in an adjacent cell. The Bee picks it out and throws it away at a
distance, as she did with the straws just now. There are two inferences
to be drawn from this, both extremely interesting. In the first place,
that precious egg, for whose future the Bee labours so indefatigably,
becomes a valueless, cumbersome, hateful thing when it belongs to
another. Her own egg is everything; the egg of her next door neighbour
is nothing. It is flung on the dust-heap like any bit of rubbish. The
individual, so zealous on behalf of her family, displays an abominable
indifference for the rest of her kind. Each one for himself. In the
second place, I ask myself, without as yet being able to find an answer
to my question, how certain parasites go to work to give their larva the
benefit of the provisions accumulated by the Mason-bee. If they decide
to lay their egg on the victuals in the open cell, the Bee, when she
sees it, will not fail to cast it out; if they decide to lay after the
owner, they cannot do so, for she blocks up the door as soon as her
laying is done. This curious problem must be reserved for future
investigation. (Cf. "The Life of the Fly": chapters 2 to 4; also later
chapters in the present volume.--Translator's Note.)
Lastly, I stick into the paste a bit of straw nearly an inch long and
standing well out above the rim of the cell. The insect extracts it by
dint of great efforts, dragging it away from one side; or else, with
the help of its wings, it drags it from above. It darts away with the
honey-smeared straw and gets rid of it at a distance, after flying over
the plane-tree.
This is where things begin to get complicated. I have said that, when
the time comes for laying, the Mason-bee arrives with a pellet of mortar
wherewith immediately to make a door to the house. The insect, with its
front legs resting on the rim, inserts its abdomen in the cell; it has
the mortar ready in its mouth. Having laid the egg, it comes out and
turns round to block the door. I wave it away for a second, at the
same time planting my straw as before, a straw sticking out nearly a
centimetre. (.39 inch.--Translator's Note.) What will the Bee do? Will
she, who is scrupulous in ridding the home of the least mote of dust,
extract this beam, which would certainly prove the larva's undoing by
interfering with its growth? She could, for just now we saw her drag out
and throw away, at a distance, a similar beam.
She could and she doesn't. She closes the cell, cements the lid, seals
up the straw in the thickness of the mortar. More journeys are taken,
not a few, in search of the cement required to strengthen the cover.
Each time, the mason applies the material with the most minute care,
while giving the straw not a thought. In this way, I obtain, one after
the other, eight closed cells whose lids are surmounted by my mast, a
bit of protruding straw. What evidence of obtuse intelligence!
This result is deserving of attentive consideration. At the moment when
I am inserting my beam, the insect has its mandibles engaged: they are
holding the pellet of mortar intended for the blocking-operation. As
the extracting-tool is not free, the extraction does not take place. I
expected to see the Bee relinquish her mortar and then proceed to remove
the encumbrance. A dab of mortar more or less is not a serious business.
I had already noticed that it takes my Mason-bees a journey of three
or four minutes to collect one. The pollen-expeditions last longer, a
matter of ten or fifteen minutes. To drop her pellet, grab the straw
with her mandibles, now disengaged, remove it and gather a fresh supply
of cement would entail a loss of five minutes at most. The Bee decides
differently. She will not, she cannot relinquish her pellet; and
she uses it. No matter that the larva will perish by this untimely
trowelling: the moment has come to wall up the door; the door is walled
up. Once the mandibles are free, the extraction could be attempted, at
the risk of wrecking the lid. But the Bee does nothing of the sort: she
keeps on fetching mortar; and the lid is religiously finished.
We might go on to say that, if the Bee were obliged to depart in quest
of fresh mortar after dropping the first to withdraw the straw, she
would leave the egg unguarded and that this would be an extreme measure
which the mother cannot bring herself to adopt. Then why does she not
place the pellet on the rim of the cell? The mandibles, now free,
would remove the beam; the pellet would be taken up again at once; and
everything would go to perfection. But no: the insect has its mortar
and, come what may, employs it on the work for which it was intended.
If any one sees a rudiment of reason in this Hymenopteron intelligence,
he has eyes that are more penetrating than mine. I see nothing in it
all but an invincible persistence in the act once begun. The cogs have
gripped; and the rest of the wheels must follow. The mandibles are
fastened on the pellet of mortar; and the idea, the wish to unfasten
them will never occur to the insect until the pellet has fulfilled its
purpose. And here is a still greater absurdity: the plugging once
begun is very carefully finished with fresh relays of mortar! Exquisite
attention is paid to a closing-up which is henceforth useless; no
attention at all to the dangerous beam. O little gleams of reason that
are said to enlighten the animal, you are very near the darkness, you
are naught!
Another and still more eloquent fact will finally convince whoso may
yet be doubting. The ration of honey stored up in a cell is evidently
measured by the needs of the coming larva. There is neither too much nor
too little. How does the Bee know when the proper quantity is reached?
The cells are more or less constant in dimension, but they are not
filled completely, only to about two-thirds of their height. A large
space is therefore left empty; and the victualler has to judge of the
moment when the surface of the mess has attained the right level. The
honey being perfectly opaque, its depth is not apparent. I have to use
a sounding-rod when I want to gauge the contents of the jar; and I find,
on the average, that the honey reaches a depth of ten millimetres. (.39
inch.--Translator's Note.) The Bee has not this resource; she has
sight, which may enable her to estimate the full section from the empty
section. This presupposes the possession of a somewhat geometric eye,
capable of measuring the third of a distance. If the insect did it by
Euclid, that would be very brilliant of it. What a magnificent proof in
favour of its little intellect: a Chalicodoma with a geometrician's eye,
able to divide a straight line into three equal parts! This is worth
looking into seriously.
I take five cells, which are only partly provisioned, and empty them of
their honey with a wad of cotton held in my forceps. From time to
time, as the Bee brings new provisions, I repeat the cleansing-process,
sometimes clearing out the cell entirely, sometimes leaving a thin layer
at the bottom. I do not observe any pronounced hesitation on the part of
my plundered victims, even though they surprise me at the moment when
I am draining the jar; they continue their work with quiet industry.
Sometimes, two or three threads of cotton remain clinging to the
walls of the cells: the Bees remove them carefully and dart away to a
distance, as usual, to get rid of them. At last, a little sooner or a
little later, the egg is laid and the lid fastened on.
I break open the five closed cells. In one, the egg has been laid on
three millimetres of honey (.117 inch.--Translator's Note.); in two, on
one millimetre (.039 inch.--Translator's Note.); and, in the two others,
it is placed on the side of the receptacle drained of all its contents,
or, to be more accurate, having only the glaze, the varnish left by the
friction of the honey-covered cotton.
The inference is obvious: the Bee does not judge of the quantity of
honey by the elevation of the surface; she does not reason like a
geometrician, she does not reason at all. She accumulates so long as she
feels within her the secret impulse that prompts her to go on collecting
until the victualling is completed; she ceases to accumulate when that
impulse is satisfied, irrespective of the result, which in this case
happens to be worthless. No mental faculty, assisted by sight, informs
her when she has enough, or when she has too little. An instinctive
predisposition is her only guide, an infallible guide under normal
conditions, but hopelessly lost when subjected to the wiles of the
experimenter. Had the Bee the least glimmer of reason would she lay her
egg on the third, on the tenth part of the necessary provender? Would
she lay it in an empty cell? Would she be guilty of such inconceivable
maternal aberration as to leave her nurseling without nourishment? I
have told the story; let the reader decide.
This instinctive predisposition, which does not leave the insect free to
act and, through that very fact, saves it from error, bursts forth under
yet another aspect. Let us grant the Bee as much judgment as you please.
Thus endowed, will she be capable of meting out the future's larva's
portion? By no means. The Bee does not know what that portion is. There
is nothing to tell the materfamilias; and yet, at her first attempt, she
fills the honey-pot to the requisite depth. True, in her childhood she
received a similar ration, but she consumed it in the darkness of
a cell; and besides, as a grub, she was blind. Sight was not her
informant: it did not tell her the quantity of the provisions. Did
memory, the memory of the stomach that once digested them? But digestion
took place a year ago; and since that distant epoch, the nurseling, now
an adult insect, has changed its shape, its dwelling, its mode of
life. It was a grub; it is a Bee. Does the actual insect remember that
childhood's meal? No more than we remember the sups of milk drawn from
our mother's breast. The Bee, therefore, knows nothing of the quantity
of provisions needed by her larva, whether from memory, from example
or from acquired experience. Then what guides her when she makes her
estimate with such precision? Judgment and sight would leave the mother
greatly perplexed, liable to provide too much or not enough. To instruct
her beyond the possibility of a mistake demands a special tendency,
an unconscious impulse, an instinct, an inward voice that dictates the
measure to be apportioned.