like herself, till more than twenty followed one another in this way.
Meanwhile another bee began to make a similar hollow on the other
side of the wall, but corresponding only with the rim of the
excavation on this side. Presently another bee began a second hollow
upon the same side, each bee being continually relieved by others.
Other bees kept coming up and bringing under their bellies plates of
wax, with which they heightened the edge of the small wall of wax.
In this, new bees were constantly excavating the ground for more
cells, while others proceeded by degrees to bring those already begun
into a perfectly symmetrical shape, and at the same time continued
building up the prismatic walls between them. Thus the bees worked
on opposite sides of the wall of wax, always on the same plan and in
the closest correspondence with those upon the other side, until
eventually the cells on both sides were completed in all their
wonderful regularity and harmony of arrangement, not merely as
regards those standing side by side, but also as regards those which
were upon the other side of their pyramidal base.

Let the reader consider how animals that are accustomed to confer
together, by speech or otherwise, concerning designs which they may
be pursuing in common, will wrangle with thousandfold diversity of
opinion; let him reflect how often something has to be undone,
destroyed, and done over again; how at one time too many hands come
forward, and at another too few; what running to and fro there is
before each has found his right place; how often too many, and again
too few, present themselves for a relief gang; and how we find all
this in the concerted works of men, who stand so far higher than bees
in the scale of organisation. We see nothing of the kind among bees.
A survey of their operations leaves rather the impression upon us as
though an invisible master-builder had prearranged a scheme of action