Dick Allen wrote (in part), in response to Peter's decision to be less
visible on BEE-L:

>In my opinion there is entirely too much pedantic drivel on Bee-L--way
>more  than there ought to be -- but your remarks are always well thought out
>and BACKED-UP by modern day references and not by something that someone
>wrote over a hundred and fifty years ago.

   Dee Lusby asked about the same point:

>Was Adrian giving correct quote? Had Nutt got it right? Had
>he understood maybe as Allen Dick suggested that the French
>way of measuring should have been in mm?

********

   Actually, my 1845 quotation from Nutt was "tongue-in-cheek," and I am
sorry if I offended Dick's sensitivities. I only posted that quotation
after a couple of weeks of exchange about whether "natural" comb from
earlier times would have had different cell sizes than what one finds
today.  Thomas Nutt's very early comment seemed appropriate at the time.  I
assure everyone that the pedantic comment by the editor, Rev. Thomas Clark,
is not my style, as one can read in Item #1A on the following web site:

http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm

   And, yes, Dee, I did get the quotation correct, having typed it directly
out of my musty old copy of the book.

                                                                Adrian

p.s.  I earlier commented privately to Peter Borst how much I have
appreciated his well-researched presentations.


Adrian M. Wenner                    (805) 963-8508 (home phone)
967 Garcia Road                     (805) 893-8062  (UCSB FAX)
Santa Barbara, CA  93106  [http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm]

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*
*    "We not only believe what we see:
*  to some extent we see what we believe."
*
*                           Richard Gregory (1970)
*
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