A similar anecdote is told by M. Huber. "During the winter," says he, "a comb in one of my bell-glass hives, having been originally insecure, fell down, but preserved its position parallel to the rest. The bees were unable to fill up the vacuity left above it, because they do not build combs of old wax, and none new could be then obtained. At a more favourable season they would have engrafted a new comb on the old one; but now their provision of honey could not be spared for the elaboration of this substance, which induced them to insure the stability of the comb by another process. "Crowds of bees taking wax from the lower part of other combs, and even gnawing it from the surface of the orifices of the deepest cells, they constructed so many irregular pillars, joists, or buttresses, between the sides of the fallen comb, and others on the glass of the hive. All these were artificially adapted to localities. Neither did they confine themselves to repairing the accidents which their works had sustained. They seemed to profit by the warning to guard against a similar casualty. "The remaining combs were not displaced; therefore, while solidly adhering by the base, we were greatly surprised to see the bees strengthen their principal fixtures with old wax. They rendered them much thicker than before, and fabricated a number of new connections, to unite them more firmly to each other and to the sides of their dwelling. All this passed in the middle of January, a time that these insects commonly keep in the upper part of their hive, and when work is no longer seasonable."[AV] M. Huber the younger shrewdly remarks, that the tendency to symmetry observable in the architecture of bees does not hold so much in small details as in the whole work, because they are sometimes obliged to adapt themselves to particular localities. One irregularity leads on to another, and it commonly arises from mere accident, or from design on the part of the proprietor of the bees. By allowing, for instance, too little interval between the spars for receiving the foundation of the combs, the structure has been continued in a particular direction. The bees did not at first appear to be sensible of the defect, though they afterwards began to suspect their error, and were then observed to change their line of work till they gained the customary distance. The cells having been by this change of direction in some degree curved, the new ones which were commenced on each side of it, by being built everywhere parallel to it, partook of the same curvature. But the bees did not relish such approaches to the "line of beauty," and exerted themselves to bring their buildings again into the regular form.