feet to the support. The wings are minute, soft, and dense, but they soon expand (as described in the case of the

Transformations of Dragon-fly.

Butterfly), and acquire the firmness, transparency, and gloss which are so admirable in the perfect Insect.

CHAPTER XVIII.

INSECTA (Insects).

Continued.

IN Insects we perhaps reach the highest point of comparative perfection among invertebrate animals, whether we regard the condensation of their organs, the solidity of their skeleton, the consequent vigour and precision of their movements, the concentration of their nervous system, or the manifold intelligence which they display. That wonderful adaptation of means to ends, which, so often recurring as we study the instructive actions of animals, calls forth more than anything else our recognition and praise of an all-wise Creator, is nowhere more conspicuous than in Insects; and is pre-eminently seen in what have been felicitously termed the architectural habits of such species as prepare habitations for themselves, or protections for their offspring.

Most of our readers are familiar with that exquisite solution of a geometrical problem*—the honeycomb.

*Réaumur, the eminent French entomologist, proposed to M. König, one of the ablest mathematicians of his day, the following problem :-" Amongst all possible forms of hexagonal cells, having a pyramidal base composed of three similar and equal rhombs, to determine that which could be constructed with the least expenditure of material." The mathematician undertook the solu

They have learned that the industrious Bees, impelled by nature to live in society, combine to form a common structure of cells, for the reception of the eggs and young, which are to form the future commonwealth, and the store of food which is necessary for their nutrition. This work is to be formed out of wax-a substance that does not exist as yet, but which is to be elaborated by a natural chemistry from the bodies of the Bees themselves. The cells are perfect hexagons, divided from each other by the thinnest possible walls that the material will sustain, and built in double series, the bottom-point of one being the point between the bases of three others, which open in the opposite direction. Now, it is found by observation, that the walls are not built up in those thin plates, which we see them to be when perfected; but, on the contrary, that the wax is laid down in rounded knobs, out of which the cells are then excavated by the jaws of the workers, each one knowing exactly, by her wondrous. instinct, how much may be pared away, without breaking into the domains of her fellow-artificers, who are similarly excavating on every side of her.

But the labours of the Hive-Bee, though truly admir

tion of this very beautiful theorem, and at last demonstrated that, among all kinds of cells with pyramidal bases, that would require the least quantity of material which should have its base composed of three rhombs, the angles of which should measure respectively 109° 26' and 70° 34'. M. Maraldi, another eminent naturalist, had in the meanwhile calculated, with as much accuracy as he was able, the real angles met with in the cell of the Bee, which he had estimated, the former at 109° 28', the latter at 70° 32', leaving only two minutes of difference between the calculation and the result of measurement; and more recent researches, conducted with the delicate instruments of modern science, have shewn even that slight discrepancy to be erroneous, and proved that the figures pointed out by mathematical research, and those adopted by the insectlabourer, are precisely identical.-Jones's "Nat. Hist. of Anim.,” ii. 235.)

able, are equalled, if not indeed surpassed, by those of the social Wasps; though these latter, because they do not minister to our wants, and perhaps, also, because of their irascibility, are viewed with a dislike, which has tended to avert from their architecture that measure of popular attention which it well deserves.

The common Wasp (Vespa vulgaris) conceals her work beneath the surface of the earth; there she builds a subterranean city. We say "she," for it is observable that the populous commonwealth which teems forth on the uncovering of a "Wopse's nest," is exclusively the progeny of one mother Wasp, which has survived the winter ; and the city was built, or at least founded, by her alone.

She first finds or makes an excavation in some hedgebank-a winding gallery a foot or more in length, and an inch in diameter, opening at length into a capacious chamber, as large as a butter-firkin, or larger. This being prepared, she seeks her materials for building. These are not wax, but paper. From window-sills, weather-beaten palings, old posts, and similar sources, the industrious insect collects the minute surface-fibres with her mandibles, bruising them, and moistening them with a liquid from her mouth, until they form a pappy substance, which is nothing else than a true paper.

"With this material the mother Wasp begins to line the roof of her burrow, always building from above downwards. The round ball of fibres which she has previously kneaded up with glue, she now forms into a leaf, walking backwards, and spreading it out with her mandibles, her tongue, and her feet, till it is almost as thin as tissuepaper.

"One sheet, however, of such paper as this would form but a fragile ceiling, quite insufficient to prevent the earth falling down into the nest. The Wasp, accordingly, is not satisfied with her work till she has spread fifteen or sixteen layers, one above the other, rendering the wall altogether nearly two inches thick. The several layers are not placed in contact like the layers of a piece of pasteboard, but with small intervals or open spaces between, appearing somewhat like a grotto built with bivalve shells, particularly when looked at on the outside. This is probably caused by the insect working in a curvilineal

manner.

"Having finished the ceiling, she next begins to build the first terrace of her city, which, under its protection, she suspends horizontally, and not like the combs in a bee-hive, in a perpendicular position. The suspension of which we speak is also light and elegant, compared with the more heavy union of the hive-bees' combs. It is, in fact, a hanging floor, immoveably secured by rods of similar materials with the roof, but rather stronger. From twelve to thirty of these rods, about an inch or less in length, and a quarter of an inch in diameter, are constructed for the suspension of the terrace. They are elegant in form, being made gradually narrower towards the middle, and widening at each end, in order, no doubt, to render their hold the stronger.

"The terrace itself is circular, and composed of an immense number of cells, formed of the paper already described, and of almost the same size and form as those of a honeycomb, each being a perfect hexagon, mathematically exact, and every hair's-breadth of the space com