way; when the poor insects adopted their former straining expedient for steadying the comb, and continued, perseveringly, to sustain it in this manner, till Huber took pity on them and glued the cake of comb firmly to the table. Could the most intelligent architect have more judiciously propped a tottering edifice, till adequate supports could be applied? The resources of bees, when attacked by the _Sphinx Atropos_ or _Death's-head Hawk-moth_ are much in point. In this case, according to +Huber+, they construct small archways and various other ingenious barricadoes, with a mixture of wax and propolis, so as just to allow the egress and ingress of one or two workers, and effectually to exclude their marauding enemy. The bees do not, as if guided by mere instinct, commence their fortifications on the first attack of the Sphinx, nor until they have been robbed of nearly their whole stock of honey. This therefore seems to be a case in which reason is taught by experience, and which admits in all its particulars of a direct comparison with human reason and human contrivance. Moreover, on the cessation of danger, and when honey-flowers were abundant, the colony prosperous and swarms prepared to issue, these sagacious engineers demolished the fortifications, in order to give room for the exit and entrance of the bees. A colony that had been thus attacked in 1804, and was tardy in its defensive preparations, having derived instruction from the past, constructed fresh ramparts speedily, on the reappearance of the Sphinx in 1807, and thus guarded itself from impending danger. From what has been said in page 296, it seems probable that the lives of the working bees do not extend beyond a year, at the utmost: if therefore my inference be legitimate, the information of the colony of 1807 must have been traditional, or else derived from a queen which had reigned over them from 1804. On the subject of traditional information, see Memory of Bees. It is further remarkable, as a confirmation of this process of ratiocination and reflection, that if the apiarian apply proper guards before the entrances to the hives, when the Sphinx makes its appearance, the bees, finding that they are anticipated, devise no measures of security.