PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 121 



the drones. This he seems to have learned from keep- 

 ers of bees. The kings, says he in another place, are 

 the parents of the bees, and the drones their children. 

 It is right, he observes again, that the kings (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 3 . To the 

 same purpose Riem of Lauten of the Palatinate Apia- 

 rian Society, and Wilhelmi of the Lusatian, affirm that 

 the queen lays the eggs which produce the queens and 

 workers ; and the workers those that produce the drones 

 or males b . Aristotle also tells us, that some in his time 

 affirmed that the bees (the workers) were the females, 

 and the drones the males : an opinion which he combats 

 from an analogy pushed rather too far, that nature would 

 never give offensive armour to females c . In another 

 place he appears to think that the workers are herma- 

 phrodites : his words are remarkable, and seem to in- 

 dicate that he was aware of the sexes of plants : " having 

 in themselves," says he, " like plants^ the male and the 

 female d ." 



Fables and absurdities, however, are not, confined to 

 the ancients, nor even to those moderns who lived before 

 Svvammerdam, Maraldi, Reaumur, Bonnet, Schirach, 

 John Hunter, Huber, and their followers, by their ob- 

 servations and discoveries had thrown so much light 

 upon this interesting subject. Even in our own times, 

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



a Aristot. ubi supr. c. 21. De General. Animal. 1. iii. c. 10, where 

 there is some curious reasoning upon this subject. 



b Bonnet, x. 199. 236. c Hist. Animal. I. v. c. 22. 



d De General. Animal. 1. iii. c. 10. 



