APIS. 343 



by three thus supporting one. Here comes the great 

 wonder of the hive ; here in this fragile structure abides 

 a mystery that has perplexed man's keenest sagacity. 

 Is it accident or is it intelligence that instructs the bee, 

 or is it the impulse of the instinct implanted by that 

 Supreme Intelligence which gives man his reason and 

 moulds all things to their most fitting use ? 



Ray's view is precisely this ; he says : " The bee, a 

 creature of the lowest forms of animals, so that no man 

 can suspect it to have any considerable measure of 

 understanding, or to have knowledge of, much less to aim 

 at, any end, yet makes her combs and cells with that 

 geometrical accuracy, that she must needs be acted by 

 an instinct implanted in her by the wise Author of Na- 

 ture." To support this idea of the geometrical skill of 

 the bee, he cites " the famous mathematician Pappus," 

 the Alexandrian, of the time of Theodosius the Great, 

 who " demonstrates it in the preface to his third book 

 of Mathematical Collections." " First of all (saith he, 

 speaking of the cells), it is convenient that they be of 

 such figures as may cohere one to another, and have 

 common sides, else there would be empty spaces left 

 between them to no use but to the weakening and spoil- 

 ing of the work, if anything should get in there, and 

 therefore though a round figure be most capacious for 

 the honey, and most convenient for the bee to creep into, 

 yet did she not make choice of that, because then there 

 must have been triangular spaces left void. Now, there 

 are only three rectilineous and ordinate figures, which 

 can serve to this purpose, and inordinate, or unlike ones, 

 must have been, not only less elegant and beautiful, but 

 unequal. [Ordinate figures are such as have all their 

 ides and all their angles equal.] The three ordinate 



