THE BEE. 93 



CHAPTER II. 



OF THE BEE. 



To give a complete history of this insect in a few 

 pages, which some have exhausted volumes in 

 describing, and whose nature and properties still 

 continue in dispute, is impossible. It will be 

 sufficient to give a general idea of the animal's 

 operations, which, though they have been stu- 

 died for more than two thousand years, are still 

 but incompletely known. The account given us 

 by Reaumur is sufficiently minute ; and, if true, 

 sufficiently wonderful : but I find many of the 

 facts which he relates doubted by those who are 

 most conversant with bees ; and some of them 

 actually declared not to have a real existence in 

 nature. 



It is unhappy, therefore, for those whose me- 

 thod demands a history of bees, that they are 

 unfurnished with those materials which have in- 

 duced so many observers to contradict so great a 

 naturalist. His life was spent in the contempla- 

 tion ; and it requires an equal share of attention 

 to prove the error of his discoveries. Without 

 entering, therefore, into the dispute, I will take 

 him for my guide, and just mention, as I go 

 along, those particulars in which succeeding 

 observers have begun to think him erroneous. 

 Which of the two are right, time only can disco- 

 ver ; for my part, I have only heard one side, for 



