122 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



(which by some were called mothers) should remain 

 ■within the hive unfettered by any employment, because 

 they are made for the multiplication of the species*. 

 To the same purpose Riem of Lauten of the Palatinate 

 Apiarian Society, and Wilhelmi of the Lusatian, af- 

 firm that the queen lays the eggs which produce the 

 queens and workers ; and the workers those that pro- 

 duce the drones or males''. Aristotle also tells us, that 

 some in his time affirmed that the bees (the workers) 

 were the females, and the drones the males ; an opi- 

 nion which he combats from an analogy pushed rather 

 too far, that nature would never give offensive armour 

 to females'". In another place he appears to think 

 that the workers are hermaphrodites : — his words are 

 remarkable, and seem to indicate that he was aware of 

 the sexes of plants : " having in themselves," says he, 

 " like plants, the male and the female''." 



Fables and absurdities, hovyever, are not confined to 

 the ancients, nor even to those moderns who lived be- 

 fore Swammerdam, Maraldi, Reaumur, Bonnet, Schi- 

 rach, John Hunter, Huber, and their followers, by their 

 observations and discoveries had thrown so much lij^ht 

 upon this interesting subject. Even in our own times, 

 a Neapolitan professor, Monticelli, asserts, on the au- 

 thority of a certain father Tanoya, that in every hive 

 there are three sorts of bees independent of each other ; 

 viz. male and female drones — male and female, I must 

 not say queens — call them Avhat you w ill ; and male 

 and female workers ; and that each construct their own 



* Aristot, ubisupr, c. 21. De Gtnerat. Animal. 1. iii. c. 10, where there 

 is some curious reasoning upon this subject. " Bonnet, x. 199 — . 236 — 

 " lliil. Animal. 1. v. c. 22. " Be Gcncrat. Animal. 1. iii. c. 10. 



