734 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



than night's milk, and generally stall-fed cows produce milk con- 

 taining a greater proportion of oily constituents than those allowed 

 to run at large. Dairymen, who understand this subject, do not 

 allow their cows to travel too far to find grass and water, or to be 

 seriously harrassed or annoyed just previous to being milked. 



Vacuujh Test. 



Dr. Lonvel has demonstrated before a commissioner from the 

 French government, a fact before well known, that animal and 

 vegetable substances can be preserved unchanged for any length 

 of time in air-tight vessels from which the air has been exhausted; 

 and further, that these can be in no danger from the ravages of 

 insects. In July, 1864, three sheet-iron cylinders, each fitted with 

 a man-hole at the top, a hopper at the bottom, and an instrument 

 to measure the approach to a vacum within, were filled as follows: 

 The first with fifty hectolitres of wheat and twenty litres of lively 

 weevils ; the second with a ton of half-eaten biscuit, swarming 

 with worms and weevils ; the third with a ton of the best flour. 

 The air was exhausted in each cylinder, and in this condition they 

 remained until January, 1865, when they were opened. The 

 wheat, biscuit, and flour were found to be in precisely the same 

 condition as when first put into tMfe cylinders; but the worms and 

 weevils were all dead and completely dried up. Two of these 

 cylinders had been kept out of doors, and exposed for six months 

 to all changes of weather. The same process has been adopted 

 for the preservation of the hop, which thus loses neither weight 

 nor its peculiar aroma. 



Cells of the Honey Bee. 



The plan of architecture always adhered to by bees, the basis 

 of which is the hollow hexagonal prism ; has long been a subject 

 of wonder. However, Professor Wyman, after having made 

 numerous careful measurements, avers that the accuracy of the 

 workmanship of the bee has been greatly exaggerated, so much 

 so that whatever the typical form of the cell may be, it is rarely, 

 if ever, realized. Accepting the statement of Professor Wyman, 

 we are still astonished at the systematic mode in which the bee 

 prepares the diflcrent kind of cells required for the various sorts 

 of eggs and larva. The smallest and most numerous cells are ap- 

 propriated to the eggs forming working bees, a larger sort to 

 male-eggs, while the eggs which become queen-bees have cells 



