Insects, 



8011 



and this without any controlling choice on the part of the construct- 

 ing bees. In one of the pieces of comb submitted to you, there may 

 be observed a large seven-sided cell founded upon the flooring of two 

 pentagonal cells ; but as in the course of construction it was found to 

 be too large singly for one grub, and divided it would have been too 

 small for two, it has been abandoned unfinished. 



Much, in like manner, has been said and written upon the angles 

 produced by the contact of the bottoms of the two series of cells in each 

 comb ; but it will be seen, on examination, that these angles vary 

 greatly according to circumstances; and the peculiar result might 

 safely be predicated on the conjoint action of a large number of indi- 

 viduals working on opposite sides of the comb, and each labouring to 

 produce a form as nearly hemispherical as possible, and with the 

 smallest possible consumption of wax. There is really no greater 

 difficulty in the way of explaining the peculiar shape of the bottoms 

 of the cells, upon simple mechanical principles, than there is in 

 accounting for that of the sides ; and it seems to me little less than 

 marvellous how any naturalist can carefully have examined the con- 

 tents of a hive, cell by cell, without arriving at what I believe to be 

 the correct conclusion, viz., that the primary idea of the hive-bee is 

 to produce a cylindrical cell with a hemispherical base. 



At the meeting of the British Association in 1858, Messrs. Lubbock, 

 Tegetmeier and Darwin, in face of numerous opponents, advocated the 

 cylindrical type as that used by hive-bees ; but Mr. Lubbock at the 

 same time stated it to be his belief that wasps make hexagonal cells 

 by choice. Mr. Frederick Smith, one of the best authorities in this 

 or any other country upon Hymenoptera, also maintains that wasps 

 work on an hexagonal plan. Certainly either Mr. Smith has been 

 unlucky in the examples selected for examination, or I have been so; 

 for I have never examined a nest of either wasp or hornet without 

 finding abundant evidence that it is only when another line of cells is 

 in process of erection that the cells in the outer ring assume a hexa- 

 gonal shape. 1 beg to direct your attention to the exterior rows in 

 the specimens of combs now on the table. You will observe that 

 where the lines have not been laid down for new cells, the outer ring 

 consists of cells whose sections would represent internally three 

 straight sides, and semicircles exteriorly. 



Were it not that the admitted instincts of bees and wasps are 

 sufficiently wonderful in their various manifestations, I should feel 

 something like compunction in attempting to disprove the supposed 



