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How Animals Work. 



faces of the palm leaves. Chartergus nidulans, one of 

 the so-called Pasteboard Wasps and a native of Brazil, 

 makes a most beautiful covering to its nest of a polished 

 white appearance, and so solid as to withstand the 

 heavy tropical rains. So closely does the work of these 

 insect paper-makers resemble that manufactured by the 

 mechanical means employed by man, that the French 

 naturalist Reaumur, on showing some of the material of 

 which these nests are composed to a cardboard manu- 

 facturer, the expert in paper promptly declared it to be 

 most likely the produce of a certain factory at Orleans. 



Have you ever really carefully examined the combs 

 in a beehive, or the honey-filled comb on the breakfast- 

 table ? It is well worth looking at closely, for it is one 

 of the most wonderful, if not the most wonderful, of the 

 structures built up by insects. For its purpose, the comb 

 of the Hive Bee is absolutely perfect in every respect ; 

 and that is a statement which cannot be made concern- 

 ing many structures. Our greatest mathematicians agree 

 that the six-sided cell, with its base composed of three 

 rhombs or diamonds, adopted by the Hive Bee, is the 

 best possible shape for her requirements. As regards 

 the materials for the construction of the comb, the bee 

 does not need to collect them, but produces them from 

 her own body, in the shape of thin sheets of beeswax 

 the very best material that could be chosen for the 

 purpose. Indestructible to all the elements save heat, 

 it can be rendered soft and pliable and worked up into 

 plates only the one hundred and eightieth part of an 

 inch in thickness the normal thickness of each cell 

 wall. A bad conductor of heat, beeswax is therefore 

 a valuable building material, as it will conserve the heat 



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