Note 1 — Chapter V · ABERRATIONS OF INSTINCT

The Mason-bees whose cups I used to empty as and when they brushed off the pollen-dust and disgorged the honey-paste gave proof of similar inconsistencies: I would see them laying the egg in the empty cell and then closing the cell as though the provisions were still there. One point alone used to cause me some anxiety; my plug of cotton-wool left behind it, on the wall against which it rubbed, a smear of honey whose smell might deceive the insect by concealing the absence of the victuals. The coarser sense of touch was dumb while the finer sense of smell continued to speak. In the case of the famous statue of which Condillac1 tells us, the sole stimulant of mental activity was the scent of a rose. The insect’s intelligence is certainly very differently equipped; nevertheless we may ask ourselves whether, in a Bee, the scent of the honey would not be so far predominant as to cheat other impressions. This, at all events, would explain the laying of the egg in a cell containing no provisions, but still full of their good smell; it would explain the scrupulous sealing of the cell in which the larva is doomed to die of starvation.