Lord Brougham's paper on "The Mathematical Structure of Bees' Cells," read before the National Institute of France in May, 1858.), and as I have been more vituperated for this part than for almost any other, I should like just to tell you how I think the case stands.

The discussion viewed by itself is worth little more than the paper on which it is printed, except in so far as it contains three or four certainly new facts.

But to those who are inclined to believe the general truth of the conclusion that species and their instincts are slowly modified by what I call Natural Selection, I think my discussion nearly removes a very great difficulty.

I believe in its truth chiefly from the existence of the Melipona, which makes a comb so intermediate in structure between that of the humble and hive-bee, and especially from the new and curious fact of the bees making smooth cups or saucers when they excavated in a thick piece of wax, which saucers stood so close that hexagons were built on their intersecting edges.

And, lastly, because when they excavated on a thin slip of wax, the excavation on both sides of similar smooth basins was stopped, and flat planes left between the nearly opposed basins.