124 EVOLUTION [CHAP. Ill 



Letter 75 make poor dear old Sedgwick groan. If the basal plates and 

 walls do differ considerably in thickness, as they certainly did 

 in the one or two cells which I measured without particular 

 care (as I never thought the point of any importance), will 

 you tell me the bearing of the fact as simply as you can, for 

 the chance of one so stupid as I am in geometry being able 

 to understand ? 



Would the greater thickness of the basal plates and of the 

 rim of the hexagons be a good adaptation to carry the vertical 

 weight of the cells filled with honey and supporting clusters 

 of living bees ? 



Will you endeavour to screw out time and grant me this 

 favour ? 



P.S. If the result of your measurement of the thickness 

 of the walls turns out at all what I have asserted, would it not 

 be worth while to write a little bit of a paper on the subject 

 of your former note ; and " pluck ' the bees if they deserve 

 this degradation ? Many mathematicians seem to have 

 thought the subject worthy of attention. When the cells 

 are full of honey and hang vertically they have to support 

 a great weight. Can the thicker basal plates be a con- 

 trivance to give strength to the whole comb, with less 

 consumption of wax, than if all the sides of the hexagons 

 were thickened ? 



This crude notion formerly crossed my mind ; but of 

 course it is beyond me even to conjecture how the case 

 would be. 



A mathematician, Mr. Wright, has been writing on the 

 geometry of bee-cells in the United States in consequence of 

 my book ; but I can hardly understand his paper. 1 



Letter 76 To T. H. Huxley. 



The date of this letter is unfortunately doubtful, otherwise it would 

 prove that at an early date he v;as acquainted with Erasmus Darwin's 

 views on evolution, a fact which has not alwa}7S been recognised. We 

 can hardly doubt that it was written in 1859, for at this time Mr. Huxley 

 was collecting facts about breeding for his lecture given at the Royal 

 Institution on Feb. loth, 1860, on " Species and Races and their Origin." 

 See Life and Letters, II., p. 281. 



1 Chauncey Wright, " Remarks on the Architecture of Bees " (Amer, 

 Acad. Proc., IV., 1857-60, p. 432). 



