ON ENTOMOLOGY. 31 



are yet only beginning to arrive at a correct knowledge of its wonderful 

 proceedings. Pliny informs us, that Aristomachus, of Soles in Cilicia, 

 devoted fifty*eight years to the study ; and that Philiscus, the Thracian, 

 spent his whole life in forests for the purpose of observing them. But 

 in consequence (as we may naturally infer) of the imperfect methods of 

 research, assuming that what they did discover was known to Aristotle, 

 Columella, and Pliny, we are justified in pronouncing the statements of 

 these philosophers, as well as the embellished poetical pictures of Vir- 

 gil, to be nothing more than conjecture, almost in every particular 

 erroneous. It was not indeed till 1712, when glass hives were invented 

 by Maraldi, a mathematician at Nice, that what we may call the in-door 

 proceedings of Bees could be observed. This important invention was 

 soon afterwards taken advantage of by Reaumur, who laid the founda- 

 tion of the more recent discoveries of John Hunter, Scliirach, and the 

 Hubers. 



The admirable architecture which Bees exhibit in their miniature cities, 

 has by these and other naturalists been investigated with great care and 

 accuracy. It had long been known that the Bees of a hive consist of 

 three sorts, which were ascertained by Reaumur to be distinguished aa 

 workers or neuters, constituting the bulk of the population, drones or 

 males the least numerous class, and a single female the queen and mother 

 of a colony. Schirach subsequently discovered the very extraordinary 

 fact, which Huber and others have proved beyond doubt, that when a 

 hive is accidently deprived of a queen, the Grub of a worker 

 is fed in a particular manner, so as to become a queen and supply the 

 loss. But another discovery of Huber is of more importance : by 

 minute research, he ascertained that the workers which had been con- 

 sidered by former naturalists to be all alike, are divided into two impor- 

 tant classes, nurse Bees and wax makers. The nurse Bees are rather 

 smaller than the wax workers, and even when gorged with honey their 

 belly does not, as in the others, appear distended. Their business is to 

 collect honey and impart it to their companions, to feed and take care of 

 the young Grubs, and to complete the combs and cells which have been 

 founded by the others ; but they are not charged with provisioning the 

 hive. The wax workers, on the other hand, are not only a little larger, 

 but their stomach when gorged with honey is capable of considerable 

 distension, as Huber proved by repeated experiments. He also ascer- 

 tained, that neither of the species can alone fulfil all the functions 

 shared among the workers of a hive. He painted those of each class 

 with different colours, in order to study their proceedings, and their 

 labours were not interchanged. In another experiment, after supplying 

 a hive deprived of a queen with brood and pollen, he saw the nurse Bees 

 quickly occupied in the nutrition of the Grubs, while those of the wax 

 working class neglected them ; when hives are full of combs, the wax 

 workers disgorge their honey into the ordinary magazines, making no . 

 wax ; but if they want a reservoir for its reception, and if their queen 



