STRUCTURE OF THE HONEY-COMB. 



tion ? Yet this is what the little bee invariably does. So far are 

 human art and reason surpassed by that instruction which the 

 insect receives from its Divine Creator.* 



54. But of all the varieties of this insect, that of which the 

 architectural and mechanical skill is transcendently the most admi- 

 rable, is the hive-lee. The most profound philosopher, says Kirby, 

 equally with the most incurious of mortals, is filled with astonish- 

 ment at the view of the interior of a bee-hive. He beholds there 

 a miniature city. He sees regular streets, disposed in parallel 

 directions, and consisting of houses constructed upon the most 

 exact geometrical principles, and of the most symmetrical forms. 

 These buildings are appropriated to various purposes. Some are 

 warehouses in which provisions are stored in enormous quantities. 

 Some are the dwellings of the citizens, and a few of the most 

 spacious and magnificent are royal palaces. He finds- that the 

 material of which this city is built, is one which man with all 

 his skill and science cannot fabricate, and that the edifices which 

 it is employed to form are such that the most consummate engineer 

 could not reproduce, much less originate ; and yet this wondrous 

 production of art and skill is the result of the labour of a society 

 of insects so minute, that hundreds of thousands of them do not 

 contain as much ponderable matter, as would enter into the com- 

 position of the body of a man. Quel abime aux yeux du sage 

 qu'une ruche cPabeilles ! Quelle sagesse profonde se cache dans 

 cet abime ! Quel philosophe osera le sonder! Nor has the problem 

 thus solved by the bee, yet been satisfactorily expounded by 

 philosophers. Its mysteries have not yet been fathomed. In all 

 ages naturalists and mathematicians have been engrossed by it, 

 from Aristomachus of Soli and Philiscus the Thracian, already 

 mentioned, to Swammerdam, Reaumur, Hunter, and Huber of 

 modern times. Nevertheless the honey-comb is still a miracle 

 which overwhelms our faculties, f 



55. A honey-comb, when examined, is found to be a flattish 



cake with surfaces sensibly parallel, each surface being reticulated 



with hexagonal forms of the utmost regularity. No geometrician 



could describe the regular hexagon with greater precision than is 



here exhibited. 



It is proved in geometry that there are only three regular 

 figures, which, being joined together at their corners, will so fit 

 each other as to leave no unoccupied spaces between them. These 

 figures are the square, the equilateral triangle, and the regular 

 hexagon. Four squares united by one of their angles will fill all 



* Reaumur, vi. 971 ; Kirby, Int., i. 377. 

 t Kirby, i. 410. 



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