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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 mel- 

 lifica ^), and which I am next to lay before you. Of all the insect associa- 

 tions, 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 enamoured 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 Keaunuu's 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 tht^ 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 ob- 

 served, as in the case of Samson ^, to take possession of the dried car- 

 casses 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 foliasie of 

 certam 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. Ac- 



1 Ap\s. • • . I. K. 2 Judges, xiv. 8, 9. 



5 See Aristot. Hht. Anvnnl. 1. v. c. 22. ; Yirgil, Georgia. I. iv. ; and Bloufiet, 12. 



