130 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



convex and globular surface, as if it were vaulted. 

 The woven cells of a hornet's nest still more accu- 

 rately resemble the facettes of a bee's eye, having six 

 sides, and being very beautifully surmounted by an 

 arched web. The eye of the bee, and most other 

 perfect insects, considered in this light, is really like 

 a little net. Some curious persons, to whom Swam- 

 merdam showed these six-sided facettes, were of 

 opinion that, in the structure of the eyes, reasons 

 might be found why bees make their comb-cells six- 

 sided, because they exercise the sense of vision with 

 six-sided eyes. " Behold,'' he exclaims, " how far we 

 are led away by fictions, when, being ignorant of the 

 foundations of things, we follow our vain fancy as a 

 guide ; for it would be as natural to say, we should 

 build only round houses, because the pupil of our 

 eyes is of that figure*." 



Dr. Hooke computed, in the two eyes of a dragon- 

 fly, 14,000 facettes, and Leeuwenhoeck counted 

 12,544 in (we may suppose) a different species ; and 

 each was, besides, so beautiful, so regular, and 

 formed with so much art, as far to surpass the most 

 exquisite specimens of human workmanship f. 



The eyes of the bee, Swammerdam further de- 

 scribes as very thickly covered with hair, serving, as 

 he supposes, instead of eye-brows, or eye-lashes. In 

 structure these hairs resemble bristles, being round, 

 and tapering from the root to a fine point. They are 

 very firmly fixed, piercing through the outer coat of 

 the eye as hairs do through the human skin. Their 

 number is very considerable, and, though less than 

 the number of the facettes, they appear so closely set 

 as to constitute a thick forest of bristles, like so many 

 fir trees planted upon the eye. They are probably 

 fixed, to guard the eye against anything falling on or 

 striking against it; to keep off the dust, and, in case 

 any of these annoyances should slip in, to assist the 

 * Biblia Nat. i, 21 1.. f Micrographia. 



