396 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



carrying the masses of poll&n ; of the auricle and pecten which enable 

 the workers to use these tibiae as pincers* ; of the brush that lines the 

 inside of their plantae ? Can they lengthen its abdomen ; alter its color 

 and clothing ; give a curve to its sting ; deprive it of its wax-pockets, and 

 of the vessels for secreting that substance ; and render its ovaries more 

 conspicuous, and capable of yielding female as well as male eggs? Can, 

 \n the next place, the seemingly trivial circumstances just enumerated 

 altogether alter the instinct of these creatures? Can they give to one 

 description of animals address and industry ; and to the other astonishing 

 fecundity ? Can we conceive them to change the very passions, tempers, 

 and manners ? That the very same foetus if feed with more pungent food, 

 in a higher temperature and in a vertical position, shall become a female 

 destined to enjoy love, to burn with jealousy and anger, to be incited to 

 vengeance, and to pass her time without labor — that this very same foetus, 

 if feed with more simple food, in a lower temperature, in a more confined 

 and horizontal habitation, shall come forth a worker zealous for the good 

 of the community, a defender of the public rights, enjoying an immunity 

 from the stimulus of sexual appetite and the pains of parturition — laborious, 

 industrious, patient, ingenious, skilful — incessantly engaged in the nurture 

 of the young ; in collecting honey and pollen ; in elaborating wax ; in 

 constructing cells, and the like ! — paying the most respectful and assiduous 

 attention to objects which, had its ovaries been developed, it would have 

 hated, and pursued with the most vindictive fury till it had destroyed 

 them ! Further, that these factitious queens (I mean those that the bees 

 elect from amongst worker brood, and educate to supply the place of a 

 lost one in the manner just described) shall differ remarkably from the 

 natural queens (or those that have been wholly educated in a royal cell), 

 in being altogether mute.^ All this, you will think at first sight so improba- 

 ble, and next to impossible, that you will require the strongest and most 

 irrefragable evidence before you will believe it. 



In spite of all these powerful probabilities to the contrary, this aston- 

 ishing and seemingly incredible fact rests upon strong foundations, and is 

 established by experiments made at different times, by different persons 

 of the highest credit, in different parts of Europe. The first who brought 

 it before the public (as I lately observed) was M. Schirach, secretary of 

 an Apiarian Society established at Little IBautzen in Upper Lusatia. He 

 observed that bees, when shut up with a portion of comb containing only 

 worker brood, would soon erect royal cells, and thus obtain queens : — the 

 experiment was frequently repeated, and the result was almost uniformly the 

 same. In one instance he tried it with a single celT, and it succeeded.^ 

 This curious fact was communicated to the celebrated Bonnet, who, 

 though he hesitated long before he admitted it, was at length fully con- 

 vinced. M. Wilhelmi (Schirach's brother-in-law), though at first he 

 accounted for the fact upon other principles, and objected strongly to the 

 doctrine in question, induced by the powerful evidence in favor of it, at 

 last gave up his former opinion, and embraced it. And, to mention no 

 more, the great Aristomachus of modern times, M. Huber, by experi- 

 ments repeated for ten years, was fully convinced of the truth of Schi- 

 rach's position.* 



» Huber, t. 4. /. 4—6. « Huber, i. 292. ^ Bonnet, x. * Huber, i. 132. 



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