Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/115

branch of their natural history are calculated to excite the deepest interest, and we regret that our limits oblige us to forego the pleasure of reciting them, and to refer our readers to the original work. We cannot, however, omit one extract from his observations, which strikingly proves that though the bees, when left to themselves, regulate their operations with perfect uniformity, they are yet capable of modifying them in particular circumstances. "Having seen bees," says he, "work both upwards and downwards, we wished to investigate whether we could compel them to construct their combs in any other direction. We tried to confound them with a hive glazed above and below, so that they had no place of support but the upright sides of their dwelling; lodging themselves in the 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. I put them to a still greater trial: As they now testified their inclination to carry their combs in the shortest way to the opposite side of the hive,—for they prefer uniting them to wood, or a surface rougher than glass,—I covered it with a pane of this last mentioned material. Whenever this smooth and slippery substance was interposed between them and the wood, they departed from the straight line hitherto followed, and bent the structure of their comb at a right angle to what was already made, so that the prolongation of the extremity might reach another side of the hive which had been left free. Varying this experiment after several fashions, I saw the bees constantly change