SWAMMERDAM 185 



the anatomy of a drone had been one of the marvels of 

 nature which he had laid before the duke of Tuscany in 

 1668. He now spent several months upon the in- 

 vestigation, dissecting by day, and writing his descrip- 

 tions at night. All his favourite anatomical methods 

 were brought into play — dissection with simple lenses, 

 inflation, injection with coloured liquids, and mounting 

 in balsam. The life-history, the anatomy of the male, 

 female and neuter bees in every stage, and the whole 

 economy of the hive, are carefully described. To the 

 discussion of special points of structure or function 

 Swammerdam brings a considerable knowledge, not only 

 of insects but of animals in general, and often enters 

 upon fruitful comparisons. The engraved figures would 

 do credit to the most skilful anatomists of any age. 

 This, the first extensive and truly scientific memoir on 

 the hive and its inhabitants, carries the exploration a 

 long way at a single bound, and biology can hardly 

 produce a second example of a research so comprehensive 

 and disfigured by so few faults. 



In spite of his extraordinary sagacity and the most 

 scrupulous pains, Swammerdam's account of the hive- 

 bee contains some errors of fact and of interpretation. 

 The naturalist who undertakes to describe for the first 

 time so complex a thing as a social insect reminds one 

 of the pilgrim who had to go along the Valley of 

 Humiliation ; Bunyan tells us that Christian went down 

 very warily, yet he caught a slip or two. 



Swammerdam had announced in his Historia In- 

 sectorum Generalis (1669) that tlie queen, hitherto 

 commonly called the "king of the bees," is the only 

 eftective female in the hive; that the drones are the 

 males and the workers neuters. This identification 

 rested upon his careful and detailed anatomical examiua- 



