he insect begins
to fill it with honey before laying an egg there. He returns with his
booty and wishes to disburse himself in the nest, finds the cellule
which he has to fill, and proceeds always in the same order: first, he
plunges his head in the cell and disgorges the honey which fills his
crop; secondly, he emerges from the cell, turns round, and lets fall
the pollen which remains attached to his legs. Suppose that an insect
has just disgorged his honey, the observer touches his belly with a
straw; the little animal, disturbed in his operation, returns to it
having only the second act to perform. But he re-commences the whole
of his operations though having nothing more to disgorge; he again
plunges his head into the cell and goes through a pretence of
disgorging, then turns round and frees himself from the pollen.
Although touched twice, thrice, or more frequently, he always repeats
the first action before executing the second. It is, says Fabre,
almost like the movement of a machine of which the wheelwork will not
act until one has begun to turn the wheel which directs it.

[5] J. H. Fabre, _Souvenirs entomologiques_, Paris, 1879,
pp. 275 _et seq._

It is incontestable; but I would add, as this conscientious observer
does not, that that does not prove that the intelligence of the insect
differs essentially from ours; it is a simple question of degree. Look
at a boy who is going to jump over a ditch: he begins by spitting into
his hands and rubbing them one against the other before taking his
spring. In what has this served him? It is not more intelligent than
the gesture of the bee who first plunges his head in the cell before
freeing his claws, although the first gesture is useless.[6]

[6] It should perhaps be added that while the boy's action
is not consciously intelligent, it is by no means
purposeless, and is therefore not quite parallel with the
insect's. By vigorously irritating the sensory nerves of the
hand the boy imparts a stimulus to his muscular system. His
act belongs to a large group which has been especially
studied by Fere. See his _Sensation et Mouvement_ (1887),
and _Pathologie des Emotions_ (1892).

And, from another side, if nothing is more instinctive than the manner
in which domestic Bees construct their cells of wax with geometric
regularity, there are other circumstances in which these same insects
give proof of