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LETTER XIX. 



SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



PERFECT SOCIETIES — Continued, (the hive-bee.) 



The glory of an all-wise and omnipotent Creator, you will acknowledge, 

 is wonderfully manifested by the varied proceedings of those social tribes 

 of which I have lately treated; but it shines forth with a brightness still 

 more intense in the instincts that actuate the common hive-bee (^Apis 

 mellijicay, and which I am next to lay before you. Of all the insect 

 associations, there are none that have more excited the attention and 

 admiration of mankind in every age, or been more universally interesting, 

 than the colonies of these little useful creatures. Both Greek and Roman 

 writers are loud in their praise ; nay, some philosophers were so enamored 

 of them, that, as I observed before, they devoted a large portion of their 

 time to the study of their history. Whether the knowledge they acquired 

 was at all equivalent to the years that were spent in the attainment of it 

 may be doubted ; for, were it so, it is probable that Aristotle and Pliny 

 would have given a clearer and more consistent account of the inhabitants 

 of the hive than they have done. Indeed, had their discoveries borne any 

 proportion to the long tract of time asserted to have been employed by 

 some in the study of these insects, they ought to have rivalled, and even 

 exceeded, those of the Reaumurs and Hubers of our own age. 



Numerous, and wonderful for their absurdity, were the errors and fables 

 which many of the ancients adopted and circulated with respect to the 

 generation and propagation of these busy insects. For instance, — that 

 they were sometimes produced from the putrid bodies of oxen and lions ; 

 the kings and leaders from the brain, and the vulgar herd from the flesh; 

 — a fable, derived probably from swarms of bees having been observed, 

 as in the case of Samson*^, to take possession of the dried carcasses of 

 these animals, or, perhaps, from the myriads of flies (for the vulgar do not 

 readily distinguish flies from bees) often generated in their putrescent 

 flesh. They adopted another notion equally absurd, — that these insects 

 collect their young progeny from the blossoms and foliage of certain plants. 

 Amongst others, the Cerinthus, the reed, and the olive-tree had this virtue 

 of generating infant bees attributed to them.^ These specimens of ancient 

 credulity will suffice. 



But do not think that all the ancients imbibed such monstrous opinions. 

 Aristotle's sentiments seem to have been much more correct, and not very 

 wide of what some of our best modern apiarists have advanced. Accord- 

 ing to him, the kings (so he denominates the queen-bee) generate both 

 kings and workers ; and the latter the drones. This he seems to have 



> Apis ** e. I. K. 2 Judges, xiv. 8, 9. 



3 See Aristot. Hist. Animal. 1. v. c, 22, ; Virgil, Georgic. 1. iv. ; and Mouflet, 12. 



