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HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



serving for store-houses for food, others for the habitations of 

 the citizens, and a few, much more extensive than the rest, 

 destined for the palaces of the sovereign. He perceives that 

 the substance of which the whole city is built is one which 

 man, with all his skill, is unable to fabricate ; and that the 

 edifices in which it is employed are such, as the most expert 

 artist would find himself incompetent to erect. And the 

 whole is the work of a society of insects ! Quel ahime (he ex- 

 claims with Bonnet) aux yeux du sagequCune ruche d^Abeilles! 

 Quelle sagesse profonde se cache dans cet ahime ! Quel phi- 

 losophe osera le fonder!^'' ^or have its mysteries yet been 

 fathomed. Philosophers have in all ages devoted their lives 

 to the subject ; from Aristomachus of Soli in Cilicia, who, 

 we are told by Pliny, for fifty-eight years attended solely 

 to bees, and Philiscus the Thracian, who spent his whole 

 time in forests investigating their manners, to Swammerdam, 

 Reaumur, Hunter, and Huber of modern times. Still the 

 construction of the combs of a bee-hive is a miracle which 

 overwhelms our faculties. 



You are probably aware that the hives with which we 

 provide bees are not essential to their labours, and that they 

 can equally form their city in the hollow of a tree or any 

 other cavity. In whatever situation it is placed, the general 

 plan which they follow is the same. You have seen a honey- 

 comb, and must have observed that it is a flattish cake, com- 

 posed of a vast number of cells, for the most part hexagonal, 

 regularly applied to each other's sides, and arranged in two 

 strata or layers placed end to end. The interior of a bee-hive 

 consists of several of these combs fixed to its upper part and 

 sides, arranged vertically at a small distance from each other, 

 so that the cells composing them are placed in a horizontal 

 position, and have their openings in opposite directions — not 

 the best position one would have thought for retaining a fluid 

 like honey, yet the bees find no inconvenience on this score. 

 The distance of the combs from each other is about half an 

 inch, that is, sufficient to allow two bees busied upon the op- 

 posite cells to pass each other with facility. Besides these 

 vacancies, which form the high roads of their community, the 

 combs are here and there pierced with holes which serve as 



