Note 1 — Chapter VII · INSTINCT AND DISCERNMENT

The Megachiles1 build their honey-jars with disks cut out of leaves; certain Anthidia make felted cotton wallets; others fashion pots out of resin. There you have instinct. Will any rash mind ever conceive the singular idea that the Leaf-cutter might very well have started working in cotton, that the cotton-wool-worker once thought or will one day think of cutting disks out of the leaves of the lilac- or the rose-tree, that the resin-kneader began with clay? Who would dare to indulge in such theories? Each Bee has her art, her medium, to which she strictly confines herself. The first has her leaves; the second her wadding; the third her resin. None of these guilds has ever changed trades with another; and none ever will. There you have instinct, keeping the workers to their specialities. There are no innovations in their workshops, no formulæ resulting from experiment, no ingenious devices, no progress from the indifferent to the good, from the good to the excellent. To-day’s method is the facsimile of yesterday’s; and to-morrow will know no other.