128 DUBLIN XATUKAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



the county of Waterford. Mrs. Baker, taxidermist to the Society, pre- 

 sents specimens of the oldand young Sooty Tern {Sterna fiiUginosa), given 

 to her by a Mr. Hamilton, who has gone abroad. She cannot positively 

 say it had been shot on the Irish coasts, but is under the impression that 

 it was. Morris mentions two having been procured in Ireland, at Wex- 

 ford ; and one in October, 1852, was shot at Tutbury, near Burton-on- 

 Trent, and was secured for the collection of H. W. Des Veaux, Esq., of 

 Drakelow Hall. Yarrell does not give the bird as British." 



\_Addendum to the ahove. — In a communication, dated March, 1862, 

 Mr. F. J. Foot notices the Golden Oriole as follows : — "This bird has 

 several times occurred. Two specimens were shot some years since at 

 Roxton, near Corrofin, and, some fifteen years ago, a small flock of them 

 were seen on some crags near Ennis." j 



ON THE FORM OF THE CELLS MADE BY YARIOTTS WASPS, AND BY THE HONEY 

 BEE ; WITH AN APPENDIX ON THE OEIGIN OF SPECIES. BY THE KEY. 

 SAMUEL HAUQHTON, F. T. C. D. 



[Read November 21, 1862.] 



The geometrical form affected by the cells of various kinds of wasps and 

 bees has attracted the attention, and called forth the speculations, of 

 naturalists and geometers from the earliest periods. By one class of 

 writers the geometrical properties of these cells have been used as 

 proofs, not so much of the skill and instinct of the insects as of the wis- 

 dom and intelligence of their Creator ; while, by the opposite class of 

 writers, these same geometrical properties of the cells are alleged as a 

 sufficient cause for the production of the insects that make them, from 

 the advantages 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 geometrical plan of making 

 their cells. 



I have for a long time felt convinced that both parties in this con- 

 troversy are in error, as men generally are when they attempt to specu- 

 late on the reasons for the existence of things ; and that the properties 

 of the cells are only the necessary consequence of their geometrical form, 

 which form itself is the neccssarj^ consequence of mechanical conditions, 

 totally unconnected with design, and incapable of rendering an account 

 of the origin of the insects that make the cells. 



The geometrical cells of the wasps and bees that I have had an op- 

 portunity of examining may be divided into three classes. 



1st. Hexagonal cells, formed of adjoining pyramidal figures, with 

 slightly curved axes, not terminating in a point, but in a rounded ex- 

 tremity. 



The British tree- wasp forms its i)upa cells in this manner, and, in consequence of the 

 pyramidal form of the hexagonal cells, the comb opens out on the lower side, so as to 

 jire-ent a larger surface than on the upper side. 



