86 HUMBLE CREATURES. 



extreme tenuity that have been brought into close 

 contact. 



Looking, then, at the foregoing circumstances, and 

 considering also that aU animals construct tubular or 

 circular habitations*, we should be disposed to agree 

 with those naturalists who regard the hive-ceUs as 

 normally cylindrical ; and certainly the mathematical 

 precision with which they appear to be framed inclines 

 us to attribute the hexagonal form to ■ mechanical 

 rather than to instinctive causes. At the same time, 

 we are not at all wishful to rob our little worker of 

 any merit to which she is entitled ; and we feel equally 

 satisfied, from the powers of observation possessed by 

 the Bee, and the regularity with which her natural 

 operations are repeated, that much of the uniformity 

 of these cells is due to the circumstance, that, guided 

 (as Dr. Lankester says) by external impressions, she 

 lends a helping hand to inorganic nature_, and co- 

 operates with her lawsf . 



As the foundation wall of wax, from either side of 

 which the cells are excavated, is suspended perpendi- 

 cularly from the vault of the hive, it follows that the 



* We purposely omit to notice the statement of a few na- 

 turaliats wlio pronounce the design of the Wasp's cell to be 

 hexagonal. What applies to the Bee applies eq^ually to the 

 Wasp ; and some Wasps hmld circular cells, or at least cells 

 that are round at the outside of the nest. — See Eymer Jones, 

 'Nat. Hist, of Animak,' vol. ii. p. 229 (1842). 



t In his work on the ' Origin of Species,' Mr. Darwin de- 

 scribes some experiments tried by him in connexion with the 

 method by which Bees construct their cells; — ^these experi- 

 ments prove satisfactorily that they are sX first circular. 



