30 i Mr. A. R. Wallace on the Bee's Cell, 



natural or divinely inspired instinct, by which it is enabled to 

 construct its cells on true mechanical and mathematical princi- 

 ples, so as to combine the requisite accommodation for rearing 

 its brood and storing its honey, with the greatest amount of 

 strength and the utmost economy of material. In his opinion 

 of this last school I quite agree with him, but think he has not 

 pointed out its weakest points. If we consider the cell as 

 adapted to the size of the grub and young bee, and in its re- 

 lations to the cells immediately surrounding it, there can be 

 no doubt that the form of the cell itself, with its pyramidal 

 base and arrangement in double tiers, gives the greatest eco- 

 nomy of space and material possible. But if we look at the 

 whole comb suspended vertically by its upper side only, we shall 

 immediately perceive that the strain upon its uppermost rows of 

 cells is many times greater than that upon its lower ones; so 

 that, if economy of material was the main object of this beautiful 

 structure, and the attainment of such economy was secured by 

 unerring wisdom, the walls of the cells should regularly decrease 

 in thickness from the upper to the lower part of the comb. The 

 same mathematical knowledge that enables us to see the beauty 

 and economy of the form of the individual cells, as surely points 

 out the great waste of material in building the upper and lower 

 portions of the comb of the same thickness and strength. We 

 have here, I think, a conclusive argument against the notion 

 that the bees are guided by any supernatural impulse to con- 

 struct their cells on the best mathematical principles, so as to 

 economize, in the highest degree, labour, space, and material. 



When Mr. Haughton attempts to overthrow the theory of Mr. 

 Darwin on this subject, we are compelled to demur to many of 

 his statements, which, indeed, are often so deficient in clearness 

 as to suggest the idea that ' The Origin of Species ' has been 

 but superficially studied by him. In his first paragraph, for 

 example, he speaks of a class of writers by whom "the geo- 

 metrical properties of the cells are alleged as a sufficient cause 

 for the production of the insects that make them, from the ad- 

 vantage which these forms of cells are supposed to possess over 

 other forms — advantages said to be so important as to decide 

 the battle of life in favour of the insects that adopt the geo- 

 metrical plan of making their cells." This is surely a most 

 unfair statement of the doctrine that simultaneous favourable 

 variations in structure and habits, accumulated by natural selec- 

 tion, may act and react on each other, and thus ultimately lead 

 to such a modification of the insect as may better adapt it for 

 constructing the most advantageous form of cell. Mr. Haugh- 

 ton's statement of the case is, that the cell made by the bee is 

 a sufficient cause for the production of the bee ; and he would 



