8 HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 



reception by the working bees. These cells vary 

 from one another in size, (and in the instance of the 

 royal cells, they also vary in form), according as 

 they are intended to be the depositories of eggs 

 that are to become drones, or of those that are 

 to become workers. But for a more particular 

 account of these cells, Vide Part II. " Archi- 

 tecture of Bees." The Rev. W. Dunbar, minister 

 of Applegarth, who has recently added some im- 

 portant particulars to our general stock of know- 

 ledge respecting bees, states that when the queen 

 is about to lay, she puts her head into a cell, and 

 remains in that position for a second or two, pro- 

 bably to ascertain its fitness for the deposit which 

 she is about to make. She then withdraws her 

 head, and curving her body downwards, inserts 

 her tail into the cell : in a few seconds she turns 

 half round upon herself and withdraws, leaving an 

 egg behind her. When she lays a considerable 

 number, she does it equally on each side of the 

 comb, those on the one side being as exactly op- 

 posite to those on the other, as the relative posi- 

 tion of the cells will admit. The effect of this is 

 to produce a concentration and oeconomy of heat 

 for developing the various changes of the brood. 

 The following sketch is taken from a plate given 

 by Mr. Dunbar in the Edinburgh Philosophical 

 Magazine, to represent the comb upon which his 

 observations were made, and to show that part of 



