Granting whatever instincts you please, it seems at first
quite inconceivable how they can make all the necessary angles and planes,
or even perceive when they are correctly made. But the difficulty is not
nearly so great as at first appears: all this beautiful work can be shown,
I think, to follow from a few simple instincts.
I was led to investigate this subject by Mr. Waterhouse, who has shown that
the form of the cell stands in close relation to the presence of adjoining
cells; and the following view may, perhaps, be considered only as a
modification of his theory. Let us look to the great principle of
gradation, and see whether Nature does not reveal to us her method of work.
At one end of a short series we have humble-bees, which use their old
cocoons to hold honey, sometimes adding to them short tubes of wax, and
likewise making separate and very irregular rounded cells of wax. At the
other end of the series we have the cells of the hive-bee, placed in a
double layer: each cell, as is well known, is an hexagonal prism, with the
basal edges of its six sides bevelled so as to join an inverted pyramid, of
three rhombs. These rhombs have certain angles, and the three which form
the pyramidal base of a single cell on one side of the comb, enter into the
composition of the bases of three adjoining cells on the opposite side. In
the series between the extreme perfection of the cells of the hive-bee and
the simplicity of those of the humble-bee, we have the cells of the Mexican
Melipona domestica, carefully described and figured by Pierre Huber.
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