432 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



and others, is more likely to have been introduced from Asia, and to 

 be the progeny of the Indian dhole, (rendered the more probable by 

 the wolf-like characters of the dingo,) than to be the sole indigenous, 

 carnivorous, placental mammal on that continental island. Seeing that 

 it must be a mere matter of opinion, he considered the question of the 

 occurrence of indigenous wild dogs south of the Equator as at best still 

 subjudice. 



Mr. C. Wright made some remarks on the architecture of 

 bees, in reference to previous discussions upon the instinct of 

 the honey-bee. 



Mathematicians have regarded the economical characteristics of the 

 honey-cell too exclusively, to the neglect of those symmetries which 

 Maraldi pointed out. 



The more prominent of these symmetries are the regularity of all the 

 solid angles of the cell, and fhe consequent equality of all the angles 

 made by the sides and rhombs with each other to 1 20°, or to |^ of a right 

 angle. Another important symmetry which follows from these is seen 

 in the position of that point in the axis of the cell which is directly 

 over the middle points of the rhombs ; for this point is at the same 

 distance from all the nine planes of the cell, and just opposite similar 

 points in the nine contiguous cells ; so that little spheres which would 

 just fit the honey-cells Avould, if pressed to the bases of the cells on 

 both sides of the comb, touch the rhombs in their middle points, and the 

 sides in their middle lines, by points in the spheres themselves, at which 

 they would touch each other but for the thickness of the intervening 

 walls. 



While the common mode of considering the form of the honey-cell 

 regards it as the effect of rational economy, these symmetries show how 

 the cell might be the natural result of simple or sensible economy, as 

 applied to the building of simple nests, the common type of which is a 

 cylindrical cavity with a hemispherical base. The construction of a 

 series of such nests side by side, and with the bases of two opposite se- 

 ries in closest contact, would, by the simple removal of the interstitial 

 material, result in two series of cells like the normal ones of the honey- 

 comb, both in the forms and the arrangement of the sides and bases. 

 Hence, as the bee builds the two series of cells from their common bases, 

 making the incipient depressions on one side form the interstitial eleva- 



