396 



INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



of the other face of the comb, that bees at length succeed in 

 giving greater dimensions to their cells ; and the graduation 

 of the transition cells being reciprocal on the two faces of the 

 comb, it follows that on both sides each hexagonal contour 

 corresponds with four cells. When the bees have arrived at 

 any degree of this mode of operating, they can stop there and 

 continue to employ it in several consecutive ranges of cells ; 

 but it is to the intermediate degree that they appear to 

 confine themselves for the longest period, and we then find a 

 great number of cells of which the bottoms of four pieces are 

 perfectly regular. They might, then, construct the whole 

 comb on this plan, if their object were not to revert to the 

 pyramidal form with which they set out. In building the 

 male cells, the bees begin their foundation with a block or 

 mass of wax thicker and higher than that employed for the 

 cells of workers, without which it would be impracticable for 

 them to preserve the same order and symmetry in working 

 on a larger scale. 



Irregularities (to use the language of Huber, from whom 

 the above details are abstracted) have often been observed in 

 the cells of bees. Reaumur, Bonnet, and other naturalists, 

 cite them as so many examples of imperfections. What 

 would have been their astonishment if they had been aware 

 that part of these anomalies are calculated ; that there exists, 

 as it were, a moveable harmony in the mechanism by which 

 the cells are composed? If, in consequence of the imper- 

 fection of their organs, or of their instruments, bees occasion- 

 ally constructed some of their cells unequal, or of parts badly 

 put together, it would still manifest some talent to be able to 

 repair these defects, and to compensate one irregularity by 

 another ; but it is far more astonishing that they know how 

 to quit their ordinary routine when circumstances require 

 that they should build male cells; that they should be in- 

 structed to vary the dimensions and the shape of each piece 

 so as to return to a regular order ; and that, after having 

 constructed thirty or forty ranges of male cells, they again 

 leave the regular order on which these were formed, and 

 arrive by successive diminutions at the point from which 

 they set out. How should these insects be able to extricate 



