19(5 FRANCIS HUBER. 



of a long life were permitted either to behold the glories 

 of day, or to look into the minuter wonders of the animate 

 creation. Yet most marvellously and kindly in liis case, as in 

 many others of similar privation, was that privation balanced. 

 Through the eyes of others, aided by his own mental vision of 

 surpassing clearness, he was enabled to keep watch on the 

 works and ways of the little people of the hive, to throw a 

 blaze of light on their heretofore obscure history, and to 

 become, for the wise recreation of future generations, as well as 

 for the amusement of his own otherwise dark hours, their 

 most interesting and circumstantial chronicler. 



Ocular observation has completely verified the marvellous 

 details of bee economy first related by their blind discoverer, 

 and in all that he describes nothing perhaps is so wonderful, 

 more admirable, or more interesting, than the accuracy of his 

 drt ails, evidences as they arc of the glorious superiority of 

 mind over matter trophies of persevering victory over a bodily 

 impediment, wliich but for the energy of all-subduing will 

 would have shut him out for ever from that field of research, 

 to whose entrance only his sight had guided him. 



But besides being happy in his own energetic mind, Huber 

 \\ as also happy in the providential blessing and possession of 

 friends friends who, in the grand pursuit of his darkened 

 but not gloomy life, were without a metaphor " eyes to the 

 blind" the blind object of their affectionate regard and 

 admiration. These were, in the first instance, Francis Burnens, 



