HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 27 



dation of fish-spawn. In 1777 that ingenious 

 naturalist Mr. Debraw, who was apothecary to 

 Addenbroke's Hospital at Cambridge, also adopted 

 this opinion ; and even so late as the year 1817 

 Huish has supported the same doctrine, and I 

 believe does so at the present time. Debraw 

 thought he had discovered the prolific fluid of the 

 drones, in the brood cells, which fertilizing the 

 eggs caused them to produce larvae. Huber re- 

 peated the experiments of Debraw, and at first 

 gave him credit for the reality of the discovery ; 

 but further and more minute observation con- 

 vinced him that it was illusory, and that what he, 

 as well as Debraw had taken for seminal fluid, 

 was nothing more than light reflected from the 

 bottoms of the cells, when illuminated by the sun's 

 rays. Moreover, it did not escape the acute mind 

 of Huber, that eggs were laid and larvae hatched, 

 when 'there were no drones in existence, viz. 

 between the months of September and April. The 

 two hypotheses just mentioned, accounted satis- 

 factorily, to their supporters, for the prodigious dis- 

 proportion in the number of the sexes. But Huber 

 made the experiment of confining the queen and 

 rigidly excluding every male from a hive ; nay more, 

 he carefully examined every comb, and satisfied 

 himself that there was neither male nymph nor 

 worm present ; and lest it should be supposed that 

 the fertilizing fluid might be imported from other 



