524 PSYCHOLOGICAL PHYSIOLOGY. 



precise repetition in all the societies of the Hymenoptera as a proof of 

 the great skill of these insects ; but nothing is more natural and neces- 

 sary in the whole economy of the bees and wasps than this form of 

 their cells ; if, for instance, large soft tubes are to be so placed side by 

 side that they may occupy the least space, the form conditionated by 

 the point of contact, and the equal pressure upon all sides must neces- 

 sarily be that of an hexagonal prism, as may be proved by mathematical 

 demonstration. The bees and wasps consequently, from the innumer- 

 able multitudes inhabiting a nest, or hive, must necessarily apply the 

 smallest space possible to their structure, that they may be enabled 

 to introduce a greater number of cells, and hence they become hex- 

 agonal : nature also only aims at what is necessary, and not at what is 

 superfluous, and there would have been a waste had she allowed the 

 bees to construct their cells independent of each other, for much unap- 

 propriated space would have remained. Besides, each cell is by no 

 means so determinate an hexagonal prism, but rather a cylinder pressed 

 flat by its contact with six other cells ; no sharp angles are found inside, 

 and the sides where the angles of three cells meet are thicker than where 

 two cells lie contiguously with their flat surfaces. Among the humble 

 bees, in consequence of the smaller number of the inhabitants of their 

 nests, so strict an economy of space was not requisite, the cells but 

 loosely touch each other, retaining their original round form flattened 

 only at their extremities. 



The inhabitants of a wasp's nest likewise consist of three distinct 

 groups, namely, of males, females, and neuters, which last are also 

 abortive females. The foundation of the community is laid by the 

 female, and indeed very early in the spring. The impregnated female 

 hybernates during winter in suitable places, without laying her eggs, and 

 she first seeks, on the approach of spring, after being aroused from her 

 winter torpidity, a place adapted to the structure of her nest, which she 

 begins as soon as she has found such a situation. When the first cells, 

 or the first and smallest coinb is completed, she lays in each an egg, 

 whence in the course of a few days a young larva creeps. These she 

 feeds with the juices of other insects, especially of Hymenoptera, until 

 they change into pupte, when the larva closes the lower aperture with 

 a web of silk. In the course of eight or ten days the young wasp 

 presents itself, which, like all the following ones, is a neuter, and con- 

 sequently a worker, which immediately proceeds with feeding the larvae 

 and increasing the nest. When all the neuter wasps are thus developed, 



