WAX. 253 



meet the second wonder before we are done with the first. 



In building comb, they have no square and compass as 

 a guide ; no master mechanic takes the lead, measuring 

 and marking for the workmen ; each individual bee is a 

 finished mechanic ! No time is lost in apprenticeship, no 

 service given in return for instruction. Each is accom- 

 plished from birth ! What one begins, a dozen may unite 

 to finish ! Each specimen of their work may be taken as 

 a model ! He, who arranged the Universe, was their in- 

 structor. Yes, a profound geometrician planned the first 

 cell, and knowing what would be their wants, implanted in 

 the sensorium of the first bee, an instinctive knowledge of 

 all things necessary to its welfare, which remains unim- 

 paired in its latest descendant. 



They need no lectures on domestic economy to tell 

 them that the use of the base of one set of cells, on one 

 side of the comb, for the base of those on the opposite 

 side, will save both labor and wax ; no mathematician, 

 that a pyramidal base, with just three angles, and just such 

 an inclination, is the exact shape needed, and will take 

 much less wax than if round or square — that the three- 

 angled base of one cell, forms a part of the base of three 

 other cells on the opposite side of the comb — that each of 

 the six sides of one cell, forms one side of six others — that 

 these angles and these only would answer the ends re- 

 quired. 



" The bees appear," says Reaumur, " to have a problem 

 to solve, which would puzzle many a mathematician. A 

 quantity of matter, being given, it is required to form out 

 of it cells, which shall be equal and similar, and of a de- 

 terminate size, but the largest possible with relation to 

 the matter employed, while they shall occupy the least 

 possible space." 



How little does the epicure heed when feasting on the 

 fruits of their industry, that each morsel tasted, must de- 



