132 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



entail a great waste of space, as well as a large 

 -expenditure of wax in constructing a separate wall 

 for each cell. Now, as the work of construction 

 proceeds, both these undesirable contingencies are 

 avoided in making the cell hexagonal, by simply 

 straightening out, as it were, and eating away to a 

 single thickness the original circular wall at the six 

 points where it comes into contact with the walls of 

 the surrounding cells. 



If it were desirable to go into detail, it would be 

 easy to show how easily and naturally this is accom- 

 plished in the manner in which bees work, and that 

 without it being necessary to assume any extra- 

 ordinary intelligence on the part of the little archi- 

 tects, who are guided by a few simple instincts, 

 after the exercise of which the shape of the cell 

 becomes a mathematical necessity. 



Nevertheless, the honeycomb of the hive-bee is a 

 wonderful instance of perfection in nature, and it has 

 a place of its own in the story of evolution. Between 

 it and the rude agglomeration of cells of the humble- 

 bee there is a wide distance, and every step in the 

 progress upwards has, no doubt, been taken through 

 the operation of the law of natural selection. 



The cells formed in the nest of the humble-bee 

 arise in this way. The queen-mother commences 

 by laying her eggs in a mass in a lump of matter 

 composed of pollen and honey kneaded together, to 

 form the food of the young grubs. When these are 

 hatched out they burrow in the substance, and 

 eventually spin their cocoons, and it is these cocoons, 

 rudely fastened together with wax, which form the 

 greater part of the irregular collection of cells found 

 in the nests of humble-bees. When the young bees 



