INSECTS. 



171 



They have learned that the industrious Bees, impelled by 

 nature to live in society, combine to form a common 

 structure of cells, for the reception of the eggs and young, 

 which are to form the future commonwealth, and the 

 store of food which is necessary for their nutrition. This 

 work is to be formed out of wax — a substance that does 

 not exist as yet, but which is to be elaborated by a natu- 

 ral chemistry from the bodies of the Bees themselves. 

 The cells are perfect hexagons, divided from each other 

 by the thinnest possible walls that the material will sus- 

 tain, and built in double series, the bottom-point of one 

 being the point between the bases of three others, which 

 open in the opposite direction. Now, it is found by ob- 

 servation, that the walls are not built up in those thin 

 plates, which we see them to be when perfected ; but, on 

 the contrary, that the wax is laid down in rounded knobs, 

 out of which the cells are then excavated by the jaws of 

 the workers, each one knowing exactly, by her wondrous 

 instinct, how much may be pared away, without breaking 

 into the domains of her fellow- artificers, who are similarly 

 excavating on every side of her. 



But the labours of the Hive-Bee, though truly admir- 



tion of this very beautiful theorem, and at last demonstrated that, among all 

 kinds of cells with pyramidal bases, that would require the least quantity of 

 material which should have its base composed of three rhombs, the angles of 

 which should measure respectively 109° 26' and 70° 34'. M. Maraldi, another 

 eminent naturalist, had in the meanwhile calculated, with as much accuracy 

 as he was able, the real an rles met with in the cell of the Bee, which he had 

 estimated, the former at 109° 28', the latter at 70° 32', leaving only two minutes 

 of difference between the calculation and the result of measurement ; and more 

 recent researches, conducted with the delicate instruments of modern science, 

 have shewn even that slight discrepancy to be erroneous, and proved that the 

 figures pointed out by mathematical research, and those adopted by the insect- 

 labourer, are precisely identical. — Jones's "Nat. Hist, of Anim.," ii. 235.) \ 



