MEMOIR OF HUBER. , 21 



strictly true in regard to the most important of them. 

 His discoveries respecting the impregnation of the 

 Queen-Bee, the consequences of retarded impreg- 

 nation, the power possessed by the working-bees of 

 converting a worker-larva into a Queen, a fact, though 

 not originally discovered by Huber, yet, until his deci- 

 sive experiments and illustrations, never entirely 

 known or credited, the origin of Wax, and the 

 manner of its elaboration, the nature of Propolis, 

 the mode of constructing the combs and cells, 

 and of ventilating or renovating the vitiated atmos- 

 phere of the hives, these, and a variety of other 

 particulars of inferior moment, have almost all been 

 repeatedly verified by succeeding observers, and 

 many of them by the writer of this brief Memoir. 

 It is readily admitted, that some of his experiments, 

 when repeated,, have not been attended by the re- 

 suits which he led us to expect ; and some incidents 

 in the proceedings of the Bees stated as having been 

 observed by him or his assistant, have not yet been 

 witnessed by succeeding observers. But in some of 

 these, the error may have been in the repetition ; in 

 others, the result, even tinder circumstances appa- 

 rently the same, may not always be uniform, for the 

 instinct of Bees is liable to modification ; and in some, 

 he doubtless may be, and probably is, mistaken. In 

 passing judgment, however, on his reported disco- 

 veries, we ought to keep in view, that the author of 

 them has thrown more light on this portion of natural 

 history, and pursued it with a more assiduous and 

 minute accuracy, than all the other natur^ists taken 



