h away those of her neighbors who may
interfere with her movements. Then she seizes with her mouth one of
the eight scales on the side of her abdomen and chews it, clips it,
draws it out, steeps it in saliva, kneads it, crushes it, and makes it
again into shape as dexterously as a carpenter would handle a piece of
veneering. Then when the substance has been treated so as to bring it
to the desired size and to the desired consistency, it is affixed to
the very summit of the interior of the dome, and thus the first stone
is laid of the new city, or rather the key-stone of the new city is
placed in the arch, for we are considering a city turned upside down,
which descends from the sky and which does not arise from the bosom of
the earth as do terrestrial cities. Then she proceeds to apply to this
key-stone more of the wax which she takes from her body, and having
given to the whole of her part of the work one last finishing stroke,
she retires as quickly as she came and is lost in the crowd; another
replaces her and immediately takes up the work where she has left it
off, adds her own to it, puts that right which appears to her to be
not in conformity with the general plan, and disappears in her turn,
while a third and a fourth and a fifth succeed her in a series of
sudden and inspired apparitions, not one of whom finishes a piece of
work, but all bring to it their common share.

Now there hangs from the top of the vault a small block of wax which
is yet without form. As soon as it appears to be thick enough there
comes out of the group another bee bearing an entirely different
aspect from that of those which have preceded it. One may well believe
on seeing the certainty, the determination, with which he goes about
his work and the manner in which those who stand round about him look
on, that he is an expert engineer who has come to construct in space
the place which the first cell shall occupy, the cell from which must
mathematically depend everything which is afterwards constructed.
Whatever he may be, this bee belongs to a class of the sculpturing, of
chisel working bees who produce no wax and whose function seems to be
to employ the materials with which the others furnish them. This bee
then chooses the place of the first cell. She digs for a moment in the
block of wax which has already been placed in position, and builds up
the side of the cell with the wax that she picks from the cavity. Then
in exactly the same way