iD4 IJSSTINCT OF INSECTS'. 



Having placed in front of a comb whicli the bees 

 were constructing a slip of glass, they seemed immedi- 

 ately aware that it would be very difficult to attach it 

 to so slippery a surface : and instead of continuing the 

 comb in a straight line, they betit it at a right angle, so 

 as to extend beyond the slip of glass, and ultimately 

 fixed it to an adjoining part of the wood-work of the 

 hive which the glass did not cover. This deviation, if 

 the comb had been a mere simple and uniform mass of 

 wax, would have evinced no small ingenuity ; but you 

 will bear iti mind that a comb consists on each side or 

 face, of cells, having between them bottoms in common : 

 and if you take a comb, and having softened the wax by 

 heat, endeavour to bend it in any part at a right angle, 

 you will then comprehend the difficulties which our 

 little architects had to encounter. The resources of 

 their instinct, however, were adequate to the emer- 

 gency. They made the cells on the convex side of the 

 bent part of 4he comb much larger, and those on the 

 concave side much smaller than usual ; the former hav* 

 ing three or four times the diameter of the latter. But 

 this was not all. As the bottoms of the small and large 

 cells Were as usual common to both, the cells were not 

 regular prisms, but the small ones considerably Avider at 

 the bottom than at the top, and conversely in the large 

 ones ! — What conception can we form of so wonderful 

 a flexibility of instinct ? How, as Huber asks, can we 

 comprehend the mode in which such a crowd of labour- 

 ers, occupied at the same time on the edge of the comb, 

 could agree to give to it the same curvature from one 

 extremity to the other ; or how they could arrange to- 

 gether to construct on one face cells so small, while on 



