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1859
1860
1861
1866
1869
1872

Compare with:
1859
1861
1866
1869
1872

flat bottoms; 1859 1860 1861 1866
bottoms with flat sides; 1869
flat bases; 1872

parts, only little bits, 1859 1860 1861 1866
some parts, only small portions, 1869 1872

on the opposite 1859 1860 1861 1866
in circularly gnawing away and deepening the basins on both 1869 1872

as they circularly gnawed away and deepened the basins on both sides, 1859 1860 1866
as they circularly gnawed away and deep- ened the basins on both sides, 1861
OMIT 1869 1872

succeeded in thus 1859 1860 1861 1866
thus succeeded in 1869 1872

would have broken into each other from the opposite sides. The bees, however, did not suffer this to happen, and they stopped their excavations in due time; so that the basins, as soon as they had been a little deepened, came to have flat bottoms; and these flat
sides,
bases,
bottoms,
formed by
little thin
thin little
plates of the vermilion wax
having been
having been
left ungnawed, were situated, as far as the eye could judge, exactly along the planes of imaginary intersection between the basins on the opposite sides of the ridge of wax. In parts, only little bits, in other parts, large portions of a rhombic plate
were thus
had been
left between the opposed basins, but the work, from the unnatural state of things, had not been neatly performed. The bees must have worked at very nearly the same rate on the opposite sides of the ridge of vermilion wax, as they circularly gnawed away and deepened the basins on both sides, in order to have succeeded in thus leaving flat plates between the basins, by stopping work
at
along
the
intermediate
intermediate
planes
or planes
or planes
of intersection.
Considering how flexible thin wax is, I do not see that there is any difficulty in the bees, whilst at work on the two sides of a strip of wax, perceiving when they have gnawed the wax away to the proper thinness, and then stopping their work. In ordinary combs it has appeared to me that the bees do not always succeed in working at exactly the same rate from the opposite sides; for I have noticed half-completed rhombs at the base of a just-commenced cell, which were slightly concave on one side, where I suppose that the bees had excavated too quickly, and convex on the opposed
side
side,
where the bees had worked less quickly. In one
well-marked
well marked
wellmarked
instance, I put the comb back into the hive, and allowed the bees to go on working for a short time, and again examined the cell, and I found that the rhombic