The Life of the Spider
out ovals, how does she manage to cut out rounds? Can we admit the presence of other wheels in the machinery for the new pattern, so different in shape and size? However, the real point of the difficulty does not lie there. Those rounds, for the most part, fit the mouth of the bottle with almost exact precision. When the cell is finished, the bee flies hundreds of yards further to make the lid. She arrives at the leaf from which the disk is to be cut. What picture, what recollection has she of the pot to be covered? Why, none at all: she has never seen it; she works underground, in profound darkness! At the utmost, she can have the indications of touch: not actual indications, of course, for the pot is not there, but past indications, ineffective in a work of precision. And yet the disk must be of a fixed diameter: if it were too large, it would not fit in; if too small, it would close badly, it would smother the egg by sliding down on the honey. How shall it be given its correct dimensions without a pattern? The Bee does not hesitate for a moment. She cuts out her disk with the same rapidity which she would display in detaching any shapeless lobe just useful for closing;
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