HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 485 



cells, the bees adopt another economical plan suited to 

 the same end. They compose the bottoms and sides of 

 wax of very great tenuity, not thicker than a sheet of 

 writing-paper. But as walls of this thinness at the en- 

 trance would be perpetually injured by the ingress and 

 egress of the workers, they prudently make the margin 

 at the opening of each cell three or four times thicker 

 than the walls. Dr. Barclay has recently discovered 

 that though of such excessive tenuity, the sides and bot- 

 tom of each cell are actually double, or, in other words, 

 that each cell is a distinct, separate, and in some mea- 

 sure an independent structure, agglutinated only to the 

 neighbouring cells, and that when the agglutinating sub- 

 stance is destroyed, each cell may be entii-ely separated 

 from the rest ^. 



You must not imaguie that all the cells of a hive are 

 of precisely similar dimensions. As the society consists 

 of three orders of insects differing in size, the cells which 

 are to contain the larvae of each proportionally differ, 

 those built for the males being considerably larger than 

 those which are intended for the workers. The abode 

 of the larvae of the queen bee differs still more. It is 



be necessary to add to the trapeziums, the faces of the cell, in order 

 to make them right angles. 



M. L'Huillier, professor of Geneva, values the economy of the bees 

 at j'-p of the whole expense; and he shows that it migiit have been 

 one-fifth if the bees had no other circumstances to attend to ; but 

 he concludes, that if it is not very sensible in every cell, it may be 

 considerable in the whole of a comb, on account of the mutual set- 

 ting of the two opposite orders of cells. Iluber, Nouvcllcs Observa- 

 tions, he. ii. 34. 



' Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, ii. 259. This however has 

 been denied, and seems inconsistent with the account given by IIu. 

 ber hereafter detailed. 



