S16 



TABLE-TALK AND VARIETIES. 



plants in the transept, and the 

 Wardian cases in the eastern gallery 

 the meritorious but unrequited 

 invention of our estimable friend at 

 Clapham Eise, for the transportation 

 of living plants from foreign lands, 

 were introduced chiefly as orna- 

 mental accessories, to refresh the 

 eye fatigued by the artificial splen- 

 dours of the Exhibition. The Irish 

 Flax Society had indeed been allow- 

 ed to add to its products exhibited in 

 the gallery a living specimen of the 

 common flax plant (Linuni usita- 

 tissimum), which was the only in- 

 stance in the Exhibition, so far as 

 we could discover, in which a vege- 

 table product was illustrated by a 

 living plant. One exception there 

 was also in favour of the animal 

 kingdom, and one more appropriate 

 could not have been chosen, to 

 connect the processes of human skill 

 and industry with the operations 

 of instinct and the provident eco- 

 nomy of nature. We refer to the 

 bees in the north transept gallery, 

 where, amongst different kinds of 

 hives, there was a crystal palace in 

 miniature, in which these interesting 

 little insects were seen busily ply- 

 ing their respective avocations. 

 The hives were variously construc- 

 ted. There were cottage hive 

 working bell glasses ; the ladies' 

 observatory hive, made of glass 

 covered with straw ; a collateral 

 hive to obtain the honey without 

 destroying the bees ; besides other 

 curious contrivances for apiarians. 

 The Town Mansion Hive was in- 

 habited by four swarms of July, 

 1850, from four distinct families, or 

 stocks of bees, all living and work- 

 ing in perfect haraiony. Till they 

 were brought to the Great Exhibi- 

 tion, they had been kept in a secluded 

 place on the border of a heath. The 

 entrance to the hive was connected 

 with an opening in the glass of the 

 Crystal Palace, and the bees were 

 seen constantly returning to the hive 

 laden with their treasured sweets. 



or taking their departure i ? or the- 

 fields and flower-gardens in the 

 neighbourhood. For six months, 

 they accommodated themselves to 

 their very peculiar circumstances; 

 and their curious operations, as seen 

 distinctly through the glass cover- 

 ing, were not the least pleasing and 

 instructive portion of the exhibition 

 of the world's industry. You looked 

 down into their miniature city, 

 with its streets composed of houses 

 built of a material which the skill 

 of the chemist cannot produce, and 

 on a plan of structural symmetry 

 and geometrical exactness which it 

 would puzzle the mathematican to 

 imitate. In the formation of their 

 calls, the bees solve the problem of 

 accommodating the largest possible 

 number in the least possible space, 

 and with the smallest possible ex- 

 penditure of material. Here, as in 

 the great metropolis itself, were 

 streets of plebeian houses, each of 

 them consisting of a six-sided cell, 

 the form best adapted for a cylin- 

 drical-bodied animal. These were 

 inhabited by the workers. Houses 

 of more spacious and palatial dimen- 

 sions were tenanted by, the males. 

 There were store-houses, deeper 

 and more capacious than the dwell- 

 ing-houses, for the reception of the 

 honey and pollen. And there was 

 a Buckingham Palace for the Queen 

 Bee. The workers of the hive illus- 

 trated the advantages of the divi- 

 sion of labour, being classed into the 

 nurse bees, Avhose function is to con- 

 struct and unite the cells, collect 

 the honey, and feed the larvse ; and 

 the wax-makers, or labourers, who 

 carry the stone and mortar, and lay 

 the foundation upon which the nurse 

 bees, or builders, raise their super- 

 structure. When you looked out 

 in the bright sunshine, you might 

 see that the arrivals and departures 

 were incessant. Where did the 

 bees fly in quest of honey, and how 

 did they find their way back again ? 

 How few of the strangers who went 



