THE COMB-BUILDERS 209 



which takes the least possible material to construct 

 has received very striking confirmation. 



The story is an old and famous one, but it will 

 bear repeating. A great naturalist once put him- 

 self to an infinity of trouble in measuring the 

 angles formed by the rhombs in a vast number ot 

 comb-cell bases, and he found that these showed 

 remarkable uniformity. It will be clear that the 

 hollow pyramid of the cell-bottom will be either 

 deep or shallow, according to the shape of the 

 three rhombs composing it. The apex of the 

 pyramid is formed by the meeting of three equal 

 angles, one from each rhomb ; and it is plain that 

 this apex will be sharp or blunt, according to 

 whether the meeting angles are wide or narrow. 

 It was, of course, impossible to ascertain the 

 dimensions of these angles with absolutely micro- 

 scopical nicety ; but, dealing only with the most 

 perfect comb, the naturalist found that the two 

 greater angles in the rhombs measured very 

 nearly 110°, and the two lesser angles 70°. He 

 also found that the angles formed by the conjunc- 

 tion of the cell-sides with the bases had the same 

 dimensions as those of the rhombs. Assuming 

 therefore that, mathematically, the angles of the 

 rhombs and cell-sides should be equal, he was 

 able to calculate exactly the angles for which the 

 bees were evidently striving in the construction 

 of the rhombs — 109° 28' and 70° 32'. 



Another bee-lover scientist, ruminating over 



14 



