to dispense with building any combs at all if the work devised by me should be too much against their usages. I wished to compel these bees to construct their combs upwards; that is to say, the reverse way from their daily custom, which however is not without examples among them: so I devised the following apparatus: I had a box made, eight or nine inches high and twelve inches wide, at the bottom of which we cut an entrance; the upper side or lid could be removed at will, and was made of a single piece of glass, in a movable frame. I selected combs full of brood, honey and pollen, from one of my leaf hives, so that they would contain all that the bees could wish. I cut them in strips a foot long and four inches high and adjusted them vertically lengthwise, in the bottom of the box, leaving between them such spaces as the bees usually arrange themselves. (Plate I, figure 5). We then covered the upper edge of each of these combs with a slat or lath, which did not project beyond it and allowed free communication between all the parts of the hive. These laths, resting upon combs four inches high, gave the bees opportunity of building above them in the remaining space five inches deep by twelve inches long; it was not likely that those bees should attempt to build combs upon the underside of the horizontal glass ceiling, since they cannot hang in clusters on the slippery surface of glass; it was then necessary for them to build the combs upwards from the laths, and I felt certain that I would have better success by this process than before. But it was only a small step to have invented an apparatus which could better serve our purpose; I must repeat here with a feeling of gratitude and with the satisfaction felt when we acknowledge modest merit; if I have made a few steps forward in this career, I owe it to the assiduity, the courage, and the correct eye of the indefatigable man who assisted my efforts; I owe it to Burnens. These difficult observations required minute precautions; a sudden unexpected light, a neglected opportunity, an instant of suspended attention, could lead us away from the facts into some erroneous system. Having noticed that the horizontal glass plate, interposed between his eyes and the objects to be studied, altered their perspective or their appearance in some respects, Burnens decided to set aside this chance of error; in spite of my protests and with the chances of danger that he incurred, he watched unprotected all the details relating to the architecture of the bees; the gentleness of his motions and the habit of repressing his respiration when near the bees, could alone preserve him from the anger of these formidable insects; so that I did not have the regret of paying too dearly for his devotion. This action, worthy of the most passionate lover of natural history, shows what may be achieved through the desire for knowledge and must certainly increase the confidence of my readers in the observations that resulted. After Burnens stocked this hive, the swarm established itself, as we had foreseen, among the combs in the lower part of the box, and we then observed the small-bellied bees displaying their natural activity; they dispersed throughout the hive to feed the young larvae, to clear their judgement and adapt it for their convenience. Evidently the combs which had been given them and which had been roughly cut to fit the bottom of the box, and dam aged in several places, appeared to them shapeless and ill-conditioned; for they commenced their repair at once; we saw them cut up the old wax, knead it between their teeth and form bindings to consolidate the combs. We were astonished beyond expression to see this multitude of workers, employed together in a work for which it did not appear they should have been called, such agreement, zeal and prudence, in _beings that have no right to thoughts_.