Ah! where were once her golden eyes, Like thee, the hapless reptile lived, Go, mortal! in thy reptile state, Frail child of Earth, high heir of Heav'n. No. XXXVIII. ON THE WONDERFUL OPERATIONS OF BEES. Ac veluti in pratis, ubi apes in æstate serena To their delicious task the 'fervent bees, VIRGIL. In swarming millions tend: around, athwart, THOMSON. THE wisdom of the Bees, the perfection and harmony of their government, their persevering in dustry, and wonderful economy, have been celebrated by the natural historians of every age. Nor has this subject been forgotten by the poets. These industrious insects, have furnished them with similes from the remotest times. The great father of poetry compares a crowded host of Greeks to a swarm of bees'. The Tyrians, employed in building a city, are compared by Virgil, to bees performing their wonderful operations. My motto, from the same author, is part of a simile, in which he compares the ghosts, flitting near the river Lethe, to bees roving in the meads from flower to flower3. But Milton has carried the similitude farther than any of his great masters; for he introduces the consultation of the fallen angels in Pandemonium, by a description of bees expatiating and conferring their state affairs 4. Horace, in the fine ode, in which he styles Pindar the Theban Swan, modestly compares himself to a bee, roving with feeble wing and idle murmurs, and with unceasing labour, culling from each bloom his flowery spoils. Lucretius too, while employed in collecting and elucidating the doctrines and lessons of his master Epicurus, compares himself to the bee, extracting honey from the most fragrant flowers. Shak speare exalts the subject to far greater consequence; for he describes the busy nation as a monarchy: So work the honey bees; Creatures, that by a rule in nature teach They have a king, and officers of sort; Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds, The singing mason building roofs of gold; Pope also has the following lines: Learn each small people's genius, policies, And Churchill, after the following beautiful and picturesque description, introduces a sovereign, drawing from it, in a soliloquy, the most natural reflections on the momentous duties of his station: Strength in her limbs, and on her wing dispatch, Ne'er doth she flit on Pleasure's silken wing; 1 King Henry V. Act. i. 2 Essay on Man, iii. 3 Gotham, book iii. This golden daughter of the Spring, From mead to mead, in wanton labour roves, And, humming in delight, its waxen bowers Fills with the luscious spoils, and lives ambrosial hours. But more quotations are superfluous to the poetical part of my subject, therefore, I shall only add, what every classical reader will recollect, that Virgil has devoted the fourth book of his Georgics entirely to the subject of bees; a subject, which he paints con amore, in all the matchless harmony of song.' The skill and dexterity of the honey-bees, dis played in the construction of their combs or nests, are truly wonderful. They are composed of cells regularly applied to each other's sides. These cells are uniform hexagons or six-sided figures. In a bee-hive, every part is arranged with such symmetry, and so finely finished, that, if limited to the same materials, the most expert workman would find himself unqualified to construct a similar habitation, or rather a similar city. In the formation of their combs, bees seem to resolve a problem which would not be a little puzzling to some geometers; namely, a quantity of wax being given, to make of it equal and similar cells of a determined capacity, but of the largest size in proportion to the quantity of matter employed, and disposed in such a manner as to occupy in the hive the least possible space. Every part of this problem is completely executed by the bees. By applying hexagonal cells to each other's sides, no void spaces are left between them; and, though the same end might be accomplished by other figures, yet they would ne-cessarily require a greater quantity of wax. Be sides, hexagonal cells are better fitted to receive the cylindrical bodies of these insects. A comb consists of two rows of cells applied to each other's ends. This arrangement both saves room in the hive, and gives a double entry into the cells of which the comb is composed. As a further saving of wax, and preventing of void spaces, the bases of the cells in one row of a comb serve for bases to the opposite row. In a word, the more minutely the construction of these cells is examined, the more will the admiration of the observer be excited. The walls of the cells are so extremely thin, that their mouths would be in danger of suffering by the frequent entering and issuing of the bees. To prevent this disaster, they make a kind of ring round the margin of each cell, and this ring is three or four times thicker than the walls. It is difficult to perceive, even with the assist ance of glass-hives, the manner in which bees operate when constructing their cells. They are so eager to afford mutual assistance, and, for this purpose, so many of them crowd together, and are perpetually succeeding each other, that their individual operations can seldom be distinctly observed. It has however, been plainly discovered, that their two teeth are the only instruments they employ in modelling and polishing the wax. With a lit tle patience and attention, we perceive cells just begun. We likewise remark the quickness with which a bee moves its teeth against a small portion of the cell. This portion the animal, by repeated strokes on each side, smooths, renders compact, and reduces to a proper thinness of consistence, While some of the hive are lengthening their hexa gonal tubes, others are laying the foundations of new ones. When a bee puts its head a little way into a cell, we easily perceive it scraping the walls with the points of its teeth, in order to detach such |