INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 489 



pacli comb, generally situated about the middle. Now 

 as these cells are not isolated, but form a part of the 

 entire comb, corresponding on its two faces — by what 

 art is it that the bees unite hexagonal cells of a small, 

 with others of a larger diameter, without leaving any 

 %oid spaces, and without destroying the uniformity and 

 regularity of the comb ? This problem would puzzle 

 an ordinary artist, but is easily solved by the resources 

 of the instinct of our little workmen. 



When they are desirous of constructing the cells of 

 males below those of workers, they form several ranges 

 of intermediate or transition cells, of which the diame- 

 ter augments progressively, until they have reached 

 that range where the male cells commence : and in the 

 same manner, when they wish to revert to the model- 

 ling of the cells of workers, they pass by a gradually 

 decreasing gradation to the ordinary diameter of the 

 cells of this class. — We commonly meet with three or 

 four ranges of intermediate cells before coming to those 

 oF males ; the first ranges of which participate in some 

 measure in the irregularity of the former. 



But it is upon the construction of the bottoms of the 

 intermediate ranges of cells that this variation of their 

 architecture chiefly hinges. The bottoms of the regu- 

 lar cells of bees are, as you are aware, composed of 

 three equal-sized rhomboidal pieces ; and the base of 

 a cell on one side of the comb is composed of portions 

 of the bases o^ three cells on tlie other : but the bot- 

 toms of the intermediate cells in question (though 

 iheir orifices are perfectly hexagonal) are composed of 

 foKr pieces, of which two are hexagonal and two rhom- 

 boidal; and each, instead of corresponding with three 



