11 APRIL 1874, Page 14

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—Shall I be permitted to enter a brief protest against the- sentence passed on the " Little Busy Bee" in your last number?' Bold as it may seem, and almost impertinent, on the part of an unscientific outsider, to encounter Sir John Lubbock on his OW4 ground, I would fain put in a word dr two in behalf of the exem- plary little creature which, on such slight provocation, he so bitterly disparages.

Having put a bee into a bell-glass, with the closed end turned towards the window, and a wide open mouth at the other ex- tremity, he found that the bee buzzed about vainly for an hour, without thinking of trying for egress on the dark side. Having brought eight bees separately to some honey which he bad placed in his sitting-room near the open window, he found that each of the eight fed with much satisfaction, flew away, and returned no more. Having then brought a hive of bees into the sitting-room, and placed it between the open window and the honey, leaving- open a little postern door at the back of the hive, by which such of them as were of an inquiring and enterprising turn might dis- cover the way to the honey, and thence back again to the hive, he found that very few bees made their way through the postern at all ; while, of those which did so, the greater part flew straight to the window without discovering the honey, and those that did find out the honey, went and returned to the house at regular intervals, but did not communicate their discovery to their friends in the hive. Whence generalising, as it seems to me, somewhat hastily, Sir John infers that the stupidity evinced in these instances is the basis of the apiary character,—that bees are dull, laborious red-tapeists, who, even in their most admired architectural achieve- ments, are moving as mechanically as a blind horse in his mill- round, and are absolutely incapable of originating anything when once off the beaten track of regularly organised instinct.

To this conclusion I very respectfully demur, holding, in oppo- sition to it, that bees have never had half the credit for cleverness to which their architectural ability really entitles them. If Mr. Lewes is right in supposing that instinct is never anything more than " the organised and hereditarily transmitted experience of anceetors who have learnt to adapt their habits to their needs," nothing is more certain than that the constructive faculty of the hive-bee cannot possibly be instinctive, for it certainly has not been hereditarily transmitted. The sterile, neuter, working bees which alone possess it cannot have inherited it from their parents or other ancestors, for to none of these, queen-bees and drones as they are, did it ever belong, while the working neuters themselves never have any offspring to whom to bequeath it. Unless, there- fore, it were innate in the first generation of hive-workers that -ever made their appearance, it must have been artificially originated by that generation, and brought to perfection either immediately by that same generation, or gradually by succeeding generations. In all probability, it is, as Mr. Darwin supposes, the aggregate of many minute and progressive improvements among successive generations of working bees. But if so, how can it, either piece- meal or in the aggregate, have been transmitted from one genera- tion to another—seeing that it cannot have been transmitted hereditarily—seeing that the case is plainly one in which the Darwinian formula of " descent with modification by natural selection " is only very partially applicable ?

By way of answer, I venture to suggest the following. When hive-bees swarm, the colony sent forth does not consist of young 'bees exclusively, but comprehends a considerable proportion of the breed of previous years ; and I would suggest that these elder brethren, already practised masons, instruct their juniors in the mystery of building. And this suggestion, however novel it may be, I offer with some confidence, because, as the constructive faculty of the working bees cannot have been inherited, it must have been acquired, and it is not easy to imagine any other way in which it -could be acquired within the time allowed. But if this explana- tion be accepted, very important consequences may he seen to follow from it. For the mere communication and reception of the supposed instruction—not to speak of the gradual acquisition of its subject-matter—imply a degree of intelligence entitling live-bees to a much higher place in the intellectual scale than could be claimed for them on account of their possession of any amount of instinctive knowledge. It seems to me clear that they must possess no small measure of pure reason. And if I am Asked how, then, they can be so stupid on occasion as Sir John Lub- bock has shown them to be, I am content to reply that even among our intellectual selves, not only nenw omni Nora sapit, but that, no .more in regard to all things, than at all times, does the wisest of -men exhibit wisdom. Newton, if shut up in prison, might quite possibly have exhausted his strength in vain efforts to squeeze himself through the window-bars; without once thinking of trying whether the gaoler might not have forgotten to lock the door ; or might have been unable rightly to direct an acquaintance to an ordi- nary at which he had himself dined an hour before. But if it be thus -with men, why not likewise with bees ? When bees make stupid mistakes, may not the reason be, not that they have not sufficient strength of mind to guide them aright, but that they have not given their mind sufficiently to the matter in band ?—I am, Sir, &c.,

W. T. THORNTON.

[Our correspondent has imputed our sins to Sir John Lubbock, who simply stated the facts from which we drew the inferences, admitting, however, that the evidence was only scanty.—En. Spectator.]