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



is a complete proof of economy of wax rather than economy of 

 labour, and a complete disproof of the theory of circular walls 

 pressed into hexagons by the crowds of struggling bees, which 

 is given us as a new theory of the formation of the bee's cell, 

 unsupported by a single original observation. 



To finish this subject of the bees, we will now pass to 

 page 437, where Mr. Haughton produces his most ci'ushing 

 argument. He seems to suppose that it is necessary to the 

 theory of Mr. Darwin that there should have been a number of 

 species of bees, now extinct, filling up the gap between the 

 single round cell of the humble-bee and the perfect geometrical 

 structure of the hive-bee, each of them using a little less wax 

 than the preceding one, and that, to effect this, it is necessaiy 

 that there should have been a bee building a triangular cell, 

 and after that, one building a square cell, before arriving at the 

 hexagonal cell of the hive-bee. But in this view there is a mis- 

 conception of the conditions of the problem. It is true that, to 

 fill up a given space with cells of a given area and walls of equal 

 thickness, the triangle will be more economical of material than 

 the circle (with solid intervals), and the square more economical 

 than the triangle. The primary use of the cell, however, is not 

 the storing of honey — but the accommodation of the larva and 

 pupa; for this it must have a certain diameter, and the trian- 

 gular cell must therefore circumscribe the circular one, and will 

 then be found to require more materials even than the circular 

 cell with solid intervals, without taking into account the fact 

 that the sides of the triangular cells, being without support in 

 their whole length, would have to be thicker than those of any 

 other form, if of equal strength. The same argument will apply 

 in a less degree to the walls of a square cell. 



A still more serious error exists, however, in supposing any 

 such extravagantly shaped cells requisite to form the gradual 

 passage from the circle to the hexagon, in order that every step 

 of the process may give its proportionate saving of material. 

 Let the reader draw a number of equal circles in contact, and 

 he will at once perceive how very simple it is (considering that 

 the bees build the cell-wall of a uniform thickness, and reduce 

 it to the smallest serviceable dimensions by gnawing down the 

 growing walls) to suppose them, when material was scanty, to 

 gnaw out a little of the solid triangles left between the circles. 

 The amount of intelligence perceptible in the habits of most 

 insects renders such an act by no means beyond their capacities; 

 and as every step in this direction would tend to the well-being 

 of the community, what was at first done under the pressure of 

 necessity would at length become a regular practice, and finally 

 settle into that class of hereditary habits which we call instinct. 



