Ɛpsilon

To J. B. Innes   22 September [1881]1

Down

Sept 22nd.

My dear Innes

The wasp’s nest has arrived safe, except part of the outer walls, & was wonderfully well packed.2 The cells are not half such disagreeable objects, as I expected to see them; as the outer walls, when not in contact with any other cell, are distinctly rounded or curved; & the extreme bases or bottoms of the cells are also rounded. If a queen wasp were to make a single cell in the shape of a hexagon, the fact wd. have been an odious one in my eyes.3 I believe that she builds up several cells at the same time & makes straight walls between the adjoining cells;; & these intersecting plates between 6 surrounding cylinders produces the hexagon.— But the subject has gone out of my head, & I cannot spare time to force it into my old worn-out brains.

Very many thanks for your most kind letter | Ever yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from J. B. Innes, 20 September 1881.
3
In Origin, pp. 224–35, CD had described the collective way in which bees began to form cells by making hemispherical scrapes in the wax, then building straight walls at the intersections of the hemispheres, resulting in a hexagonal shape. Neither CD nor Innes was aware that the principle of nest building by wasps was the same as with hive bees. Either several queen wasps work collectively to build a nest, after which the dominant queen subjugates the others and lays her eggs, or a single queen constructs a few cells in which she lays eggs to produce new worker wasps that then take over the building of the nest.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 any other] above del ‘another’
1.4 curved] above del ‘curved’
1.5 were] after del ‘had’
1.6 up] interl
1.8 surrounding] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13349,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13349