HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 15 



proved it conversely, by having recourse to an 

 ice-house in summer, which enabled him to retard 

 the development for a whole year. 



" The larvae of bees, though without feet, are 

 not always without motion. They advance from 

 their first station at the bottom of the cell, in a 

 spiral direction : this movement, for the first three 

 days, is so slow as to be scarcely perceptible ; but 

 after that it is more easily discerned. The animal 

 now makes two entire revolutions, in about an 

 hour and three quarters ; and when the period of 

 its metamorphosis arrives, it is scarcely more than 

 two lines from the mouth of the cell. Its attitude, 

 which is always the same, is a strong curve. This 

 occasions the inhabitant of a horizontal cell to be 

 always perpendicular to the horizon, and that of 

 a vertical one to be parallel with it*." 



The young bees break their envelope with their 

 teeth, and, assisted at first by the working-bees, 

 proceed to cleanse themselves from the moisture 

 and exuviae with which they were surrounded : 

 this operation being completed, they begin to 

 exercise their intended functions, and in a few mi- 

 nutes are gathering provision in the fields, loading 

 "in life's first hour the hollow'd thigh." M. Ma- 

 raldi assures us that he has "seen bees loaded 

 with two large balls of wax, returning to the hive, 



* Kirby and Spence. 



