The Life and Writings of Francis Huber. 287 



of the Belmont family, in Delphine*, is a true description, 

 though somewhat glossed, of Monsieur and Madame Huber. 

 What can I add to a picture traced by such masters ? Let me 

 hasten, then, to the works which have placed Huber in the rank 

 of savans. 



We have seen the blind shine as poets, and distinguish them- 

 selves as philosophers and calculators ; but it was reserved for 

 Huber to give a lustre to his class in the sciences of observation, 

 and on objects so minute that the most clear sighted observer can 

 scarcely observe them. The reading of the works of Reaumur 

 and Bonnet, and the conversation of the latter, directed his cu- 

 riosity to the history of bees. His habitual residence in the 

 country inspired him with the desire, first of verifying some 

 facts, then of filling some blanks in their history; but this kind 

 of observation required not only the use of such an instrument 

 as the optician must furnish, but an intelligent assistant, who 

 alone could adjust it to its use. He had then a servant named 

 Francis Burnens, remarkable for his sagacity and for the devo- 

 tion he bore for his master. Huber practised him in the art of 

 observation, directed him to his researches by questions adroitly 

 combined, and aided by the recollections of his youth, and by 

 the testimonials of his wife and friends, he rectified the asser- 

 tions of his assistant, and became enabled to form in his own 

 mind a true and perfect image of the minutest facts. / am 

 much more certain^ said he one day to me, smiling, of what I 

 taste than you are, for you publish what your own eyes only 

 Itave seen, while I take the mean am^ng many zvitnesses. 

 This is, doubtless, very plausible reasoning, but it will hardly 

 render any one mistrustful of his own eyes ! He discovered 

 that the nuptials, so mysterious and so remarkably fruitful of 

 the queen bee, the only mother of the tribe, never take place in 

 a hive, but always in the open air, and at such an elevation as 

 to escape ordinary observation, — but not the intelligence of a 

 blind man, aided by a peasant. He gives a detailed account of 

 the consequences of the early and late periods of this aerial hy- 

 men. He confirmed, by multiplied observations, the discovery 

 of Schirach, until then disputed, that bees can transform, at plea-' 



• Delphine, ptr Madame Stael, iii. partie, lettre xix. 



