200 NATURAL HISTORY OF WASPS. 
ment of a small circle or, if angular, the angles are 
rounded off and regular. Judging at least from 
the specimens in my cabinet, including nests of 
several varieties of Polistes, Raphigaster, and Icaria. 
The regular form of the cells of the honey-bee has 
long attracted attention, and the fact has. been 
settled, beyond all question, that they are built with 
the strictest mathematical accuracy, as equilateral 
and equiangular hexagonal tubes. The cells of the 
wasp are of as regular construction as those of the 
honey-bee at the sides; but at the bottom, which 
is the part of the honey-comb that has more par- 
ticularly engaged the attention of mathematicians, 
there is no evidence of any geometrical instinct. 
The nature of the influence under which the cells 
are constructed with such wonderful accuracy is a 
problem of the highest interest. It has generally 
been discussed with particular reference to the cells 
of the honey-bee. But wasps’ cells are on some 
accounts to be preferred for the examination of this 
question. The nature of the materials of which they 
are made excludes the hypothesis that the cells 
owe their hexagonal form in any degree to the 
crystalline cleavage of the wax. And the evident 
mode of construction of the paper cell shows that 
the wax cell need not have been built solid and 
hollowed out subsequently to prove so exactly 
regular, but may have been—as indeed it is—raised 
at once in its accurate outlines. 
There are two theories on this subject. One theory 
refers the hexagonal form of the cells to objective 
influences, to a physical necessity, comparing the 
formal results of the conjomed labours of many 
