130 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



as if it were vaulted. The woven cells of a hornet's 

 nest still more accurately resemble the facettes of a 

 bee's eye, having six sides, and being very beautifully 

 surmounted by an arched web. The eye of the bee, 

 and most other perfect insects, considered in this light, 

 is really like a little net. Some curious persons, to 

 whom Swammerdarn showed these six-sided facettes, 

 were of opinion that, in the structure of the eyes, 

 reasons might be found why bees make their comb- 

 cells six-sided, because they exercise the sense of 

 vision with six-sided eyes. ' Behold,' he exclaims, 

 * how far we are led away by fictions, when, being ig- 

 norant of the foundations of things, we follow our vain 

 fancy as a guide ; for it would be as natural to say, 

 we should build only round houses, because the pupil 

 of our eyes is of that figure.'* 



Dr Hooke computed, in the two eyes of a dragon- 

 fly, 14,000 facettes, and Leeuwenhoeck counted 

 12,544 in (we may suppose) a different species ; and 

 each was, besides, so beautiful, so regular, and form- 

 ed with so much art, as far to surpass the most exqui- 

 site specimens of human workmanship. | 



The eyes of the bee, Swammerdam further de- 

 scribes as very thickly covered with hair, serving, as 

 he supposes, instead of eye-brows, or eye-lashes. In 

 structure these hairs resemble bristles, being round, 

 and tapering from the root to a fine point. They are 

 very firmly fixed, piercing through the outer coat of 

 the eye as hairs do through the human skin. Their 

 number is very considerable, and, though less than 

 the number of the facettes, they appear so closely set 

 as to constitute a thick forest of bristles, like so many 

 fir trees planted upon the eye. They are probably 

 fixed, to guard the eye against any thing falling on or 

 striking against it ; to keep off the dust, and, in case 

 any of these annoyances should slip in, to assist the 



* Biblia Nat. i, 211. t Microgra^hia. 



