Note 374 — Chapter VII · THE FORMS OF TISSUES OR CELL-AGGREGATES

Darwin had a somewhat similar idea, though he allowed more play to the bee’s instinct or conscious intention. Thus, when he noticed certain half-completed cell-walls to be concave on one side and convex on the other, but to become perfectly flat when restored for a short time to the hive, he says: “It was absolutely impossible, from the extreme thinness of the little plate, that they could have effected this by gnawing away the convex side; and I suspect that the bees in such cases stand on opposite sides and push and bend the ductile and warm wax (which as I have tried is easily done) into its proper intermediate plane, and thus flatten it.”