COMB. 85 



An equilateral triangle would have made an uncomfortable 

 tenement for an insect with a round body ; and a square cell 

 would not have been much better. At first sight a circle 

 would seem to be the best shape for the development of the 

 larvae : but such a figure would have caused a needless sac- 

 rifice of space, materials and strength ; while the honey 

 which now adheres so admirably to the many angles and 

 corners of the six-sided cell, would have been much more 

 liable to run out. I will venture to assign a new reason for 

 the hexagonal form. The body of the immature insect as 

 it undergoes its changes, is charged with a super-abundance 

 of moisture which passes off through the reticulated cover 

 which the bees build over its cell : a hexagon while it 

 approaches so nearly the shape of a circle as not to incom- 

 mode the young bee, furnishes in its six corners the neces- 

 sary vacancies for its more thorough ventilation ! 



So invariably uniform in sizf , as well as perfect in other 

 respects, are the cells in which the workers are bred, that 

 some mathematicians have proposed their adoption as the 

 best unit for measures of capacity to serve for universal use. 



Can we believe that in the construction of their cells, 



these little insects unite so many requisites, either by chance, 



or because they are profoundly versed in the most intricate 



mathematics ? Are we -not compelled to acknowledge that 



the mathematics must be referred to the Creator, and not to 



his puny creature ? To an intelligent and candid mind, a 



piece of honey comb is a complete demonstration that there 



is a " GREAT FIRST CAUSE : " for on no other supposition can 



we account for a shape so complicated, and yet the only one 



which can possibly unite so many desirable requirements. 



" On books deep poring, ye pale sons of toil, 

 Who waste in studious trance the midnight oil, 

 Say, can ye emulate with all your rules, 

 Drawn or from Grecian or from Gothic schools, 



8 



