haps no other insect has afforded a more decisive proof of the resources of instinct, when compelled to deviate from the ordinary course."
It is singular that though the construction of the cells of a honey-comb, so geometrically just, and so well adapted to produce the greatest capacity, at the least possible expense of superficial extent or of materials, has been long an object of general admiration; one Naturalist, and that of no mean celebrity, affects to disdain partaking of this almost universal feeling. Buffon, as if to evince his superiority to what he considers the vulgar enthusiasm excited by the architecture of the bees, declares that "these bee-cells—these hexagons so much applauded and admired, serve only to furnish us with a new argument against enthusiasm and admiration. This figure, correctly regular and geometrical as it appears to us, and as it actually is in theory, is, in this instance, but the effect of a mechanical result, which is often found in nature, and may be observed even in the most inanimate productions. Crystals, and several other stones, and some kinds of salts, assume constantly this figure in their confirmation. Let a vessel be filled with peas, or rather with some seeds of a cylindrical shape, and let it be closely shut, after having first poured in a sufficient quantity of water to fill up all the intervals between the seeds; let this water be boiled, and all the cylindrical seeds will become columns of six sides. The cause, it is evident, is purely mechanical. Every cylinder-shaped seed tends, by its swelling, to occupy the greatest possible space in a
