454 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



The principal characteristic of this immense assemblage of existences, 

 is the entire absence of an internal bony structure. Their hard parts are 

 always outside, and form the necessary covering. Their bodies are inva- 

 riably divided into transverse joints, and consequently they are called by 

 naturalists annulose or ringed creatures, 



I would recommend you, if an opportunity occurs, to examine with a 

 microscope the respiration of the silk worm, which is not possessed of lungs, 

 therefore does not breathe through the mouth, but through spiracles con- 

 nected with the respiratory tubes, that extend to all parts of the body. 

 All the animals that are not higher than the order of the silk worm, breathe 

 in the same manner. Still life, with all its admirable endowments, belongs 

 to them as well as to us, and each individual of this vast insect world, is 

 as perfectly organized as we are, and not one of them shall "fall to the 

 ground without our Father." And it matters not how powerful our micro- 

 scopes become, as the omniscient God, through His creative energy, will 

 still reveal to our wondering sight developments so inconceivably small 

 that hundreds of millions may be contained within the diameter of a mite's 

 eye. 



There is no subject that I have given more attention to than the honey 

 bee. I had a house constructed and filled with glass hives, so arranged 

 that all their movements were exposed to me at all times, and a single dis- 

 covery paid me amply for all the trouble I had taken. I placed about 

 thirty thousand working bees in an empty glass hive, and with them a 

 young queen fresh from the royal cell. The workers immediately con- 

 structed two combs, containing 40U cells, across the hive, in which the 

 queen at once deposited unimpregnated eggs, some of which I examined 

 from time to time with the microscope, and waited with intense anxiety to 

 discover what they would produce. To my astonishment they were all 

 drones, proving conclusively that the queen possesses the power within 

 herself of impregnating an egg, but that egg only capable of producing a 

 drone or male bee. The drones when born were full size. The qu.een 

 then passed out of the hive, rose immediately into the atmosphere, was 

 followed by a single drone, and returned after ten minutes absence, when 

 she immediately commenced depositing fecundated eggs, which in due time 

 produced the working bee. It is a remarkable fact that when a working 

 bee leaves the hive to collect the materials for making honey, it invariably 

 alights on flowers of the same species. 



THE MICROSCOPE. 



(ORIGINAL.) 



Nature hides half her wondrons works 



From unassisted eyes ; 

 For in her least developments 



A world of wonder lies. 



With teeming life the rock abounds. 



The mist, the ether blue, 

 And every grain of matter lives 



To microscopic view. 



