ELONGATION OF THE CELL. 125 



cooped up in the common hexagonal cell. We must con- 

 fess, however, that it is far beyond our power of discernment 

 to discover what possible influence the mere change in the 

 formation of a cell can possess on the sexual character of 

 the insect. The only effect that we can conceive would 

 exhibit itself, would be the production of a common bee of 

 rather larger dimensions than its fellows, but resembling 

 them in every other respect, and particularly in their neuter 

 gender. If a queen were to lay an egg from which a common 

 bee is to spring in one of the drone cells, or a drone egg 

 were laid in one of the common cells, we can easily suppose 

 that the surprise of Mr. Dunbar would be great, were he to 

 see a drone emerge from the former, or a common bee from 

 the latter ; and yet that event would not be more marvellous, 

 than if a queen were to burst forth from a common cell 

 which has been elongated by the common bee, and this most 

 extraordinary metamorphosis were to originate from the 

 mere change in the construction of the cell. An effect has 

 always some proximate or remote affinity to the nature and 

 constitution of the cause ; but in the case now under consi- 

 deration, it is impossible to trace the slightest affinity between 

 a direct and positive change in the nature, gender, and pro- 

 perties of an embryo insect, and the greater or less con- 

 struction of the cell in which it is bred. In this presumed 

 elongation or expansion of the cell, Mr. Dunbar has, how- 

 ever, a difficulty to surmount to which we have already 

 previously alluded, but which in a certain degree appears to 

 have escaped his notice. It is very possible, that if the egg 

 from which the queen is to spring were laid on the edge of 

 the comb, to give to the cell that expansion which might be 

 necessary for the full perfection of her form ; but how is this 

 to be effected, if the egg selected by the bees be laid in the 

 middle of the comb, so as to extend the make of the cell 

 horizontally ; and again, how can the cell be enlarged inter- 

 nally, so as to admit the full growth of the queen ? Under 



