io6 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



are merely great pots, gathered together without any order ; 

 and, at the point between the spheres where these might have 

 intersected and induced a profitable economy of space and 

 material, the melipons clumsily insert a section of cells with 

 flat walls. Indeed, to compare one of their nests with the 

 mathematical cities of our own honey-flies, is like imagining 

 a hamlet composed of primitive huts side by side with a 

 modern town, whose ruthless regularity is the logical, though 

 perhaps somewhat charmless, result of the genius of man, that 

 to-day more fiercely than ever before seeks to conquer time, 

 matter, and space. 



59 

 There is a theory, originally propounded by Buffon and 

 now revived, which assumes that the bees have not the least 

 intention of constructing hexagons with a pyramidal base, 

 but that their desire is merely to contrive round cells in the 

 wax ; only, that as their neighbours, and those at work on 

 the opposite side of the comb, are digging at the same moment 

 and with the same intentions, the points where the cells meet 

 must of necessity become hexagonal. Besides, it is said, this 

 is precisely what happens to crystals, the scales of certain 

 kinds offish, soap-bubbles, &c., as in the following experiment 

 that BufFon suggested. " If," he said, " you fill a dish with 

 peas or any other cylindrical bean, pour as much water into it 

 as the space between the beans will allow, close it carefully and 

 then boil the water, you will find that all these cylinders have 

 become six-sided columns. And the reason is evident, being 

 indeed purely mechanical : each of the cylindrical beans tends, 



