Bibliographical Notices. 371 



found their way into popular works, we cannot blame him for his 

 choice. 



Mr. Samuelson's treatise on the Honey-Bee may be regarded as 

 a popular Monograph of that insect ; that is to say, he not only de- 

 scribes its external appearance and general habits, but enters minutely 

 into its anatomy and physiology, discussing its instincts and various 

 operations at considerable length. With the assistance of the figures, 

 most of which are good, the reader may investigate the whole struc- 

 ture, internal and external, of the Bee, and thus gain a better general 

 knowledge of the machinery by which the functions of insect life are 

 performed than could be obtained by the same amount of labour in any 

 other way. The structure of the eyes, antennae, and oral organs, of 

 the legs and wings, and of the segments of the body, is clearly de- 

 scribed ; and as the functions of each part are referred to en passant, 

 these details are relieved from that dryness which might otherwise 

 accompany a purely anatomical description. We have, however 

 noticed one or two slight errors and omissions in this Part, to which 

 we may call attention. Thus, at page 9, Mr. Samuelson seems to 

 intimate that each of the maxillae is employed as a separate "trowel- 

 shaped blade " in plastering and moulding the wax ; which, we think, 

 is hardly the case, any more than that they are employed as a pair 

 of scissors for clipping the thin wax of the cells, as would seem to be 

 implied by statements on pp. 36 and 37. The use of the mandibles in 

 working the wax does not appear to be referred to, although, as far as 

 our recollection serves, these are important organs in the architectural 

 operations of the Bee. In describing the differences between the Drones 

 and the two kinds of female Bees, our author has omitted all mention 

 of the additional joint in the antennae of the former, nor do we find 

 this referred to in his description of the antennae. From the large 

 size of the eyes in the Drones, Mr. Samuelson argues (p. 28) that we 

 must suppose them to have some duty to perform in the hive ; but 

 we think that, considering the number of cases in which a similar 

 excessive development of the visual organs occurs in the males of 

 Insects, although we cannot see the reason for it, this argument of 

 design will hardly hold, and the " male sex" of the Honey-Bee must 

 submit contentedly to the charge of being " of no use in the house," 

 which is often brought by their partners against males far higher in 

 the scale of organization. 



Mr. Samuelson's account of the mode of formation of the comb is 

 of course founded to a great extent upon the labours of his prede- 

 cessors, and contains nothing new ; it is, however, well put together, 

 and will prove interesting to the reader. In treating of the cause of 

 the hexagonal form of the cells, our author inclines to the theory 

 that this form is produced in consequence of the mechanical condi- 

 tions under which the cells are built, as opposed to the assumption 

 either of a special instinct prompting the workers to make hexagonal 

 cells, or of some condition in the structure of the Bees which renders 

 this form the necessary result of their labours. In this view he is 

 no doubt correct, as the principal evidence certainly tends to show 

 that the hexagonal form of the cells is caused by a process analogous 



