304 INSECTS. 



THE 



FOURTH ORDER OF INSECTS. 



IN this clafs of infers we place a variotis tribe, firfl: laid as eggs, then 

 excluded as maggots or grubs, then changed into aurelias, with their 

 legs and wings not wrapped up, but appearing; and, laflly, affuming 

 wings, in which (late they propagate. Some of thefe have four tranf- 

 parent wings, as b*ecs ; fome two membranous cafes to their wings, as 

 beetles ; feme but two wings, which are tranfparent, as ants. We in- 

 clucle the bee, the wafp, the humble bee, the ichneumon-fly, the gnat, the 

 tipula or longlegs, the beetle, the may-bug, the glow-worm, and the ant. 



THE BEE. 



TO give a complete hiftory of this infeft, whofe nature and properties 

 ftill continue in difpute, is impoffible. The account given by 

 Reaumur is fufficicntly minute, and wonderful ; but many of the fads he 

 relates, are doubted, fome denied, though it is not eafy to difprove them, 

 norefFtftivcly to contradidthe aflertions of a man whofe life was fpent in 

 this ftudy. That he might err is poffible, that he erred wilfully none affert ; 

 and fince his time, none have offered as guides, in whom we may place 

 greater confidence. 



There are, fays Reaumur, three different kinds of bees : firfl, the la- 

 bouring bees, which are the greatefl number, and neither male or female : 

 fecondly, drones : of a darker colour, longer, and thicker by one third 

 than the former: they are the males; and there is not above a hundred 

 of them, in a hive of feven or eight thoufand bees : thirdly, a larger 

 ftill, and in number fewer ; being but one in every fwarm : but later 

 obfervers mention there being fometimes five or fix in the fame hive. 

 The^e are called queen-bees, and are faid to lay all the eggs from which 

 the fwarmi is hatched. 



In the common working bee, the firft remarkable part is the trunk, 



4 which 



