184 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS 



pupal or resting-stage. Here Swammerdam places 

 the bees, beetles, moths, butterflies, and certain two- 

 winged flies. But those flies which, like the bluebottle 

 or the house-fly, pupate within the dry larval skin he 

 separated to form his fourth order, associating with 

 them, on slight grounds, other insects of quite difl'erent 



kinds. 



The Hive-hee 



The Bihlia Natures does not admit of brief abstract, 

 and probably the only way in which a notion of its 

 quality can be given to a modern reader is by a leisurely 

 account of one or more chapters as a specimen of the 

 rest. The description of the hive-bee^ recommends 

 itself to our choice. It is full and interesting ; it 

 reveals the practical methods and some of the philo- 

 sophical views of its author. Moreover the hive-bee 

 has attracted the notice of observers and minute 

 anatomists in every age ; Swammerdam, Reaumur and 

 the two Hubers kept the inquiry alive for a century and 

 a half without nearly exhausting it, as may be seen by 

 the fact that it was still left for Dzierzon to prove 

 the following new and vitally important points : — 

 that female bees (queen and workers) proceed only from 

 eggs fertilised by drones ; that drones proceed from un- 

 fertilised eggs ; that the queen is fertilised once for all, 

 and can fertilise or not fertilise her eggs, seemingly at 

 her own pleasure. 



Swammerdam tells us that the chief part of his work 

 on the hive-bee was done in 1673, one of those "cruel 

 years," as he calls them, of the French invasion, when 

 the dykes were cut to save Amsterdam. The very bees 

 were ruined in Holland, and hardly any queens could be 

 procured. He had worked at bees before this date, and 



^ Bihlia Naturan, p. 367. 



