430 iNSBCtS. 



the numbers of the sexes. Reaumur, however, combated this fan- 

 ciful doctrine ; and M. Huber has confuted it by direct experi. 

 ment. He confined all the drones of a hive in a tin case, per- 

 forated with minute holes, sufficient to allow any emanation to 

 escape. This tin case was placed in a well inhabited hive, where 

 there was a young queen, who could not fail to be subjected to 

 the odour ; but she remained barren. 



Maraldi was the first to suggest another hypothesis, which ap- 

 parently possessed a greater degree of probability : he imagined 

 that the eggs were fecundated by the drones, after being deposited 

 in the cells, in a way analogous to the fecundation of the spawn 

 of fishes by the milters. Mr. Debraw of Cambridge, (in the Phil. 

 Trans. 1777), strenuously supported this doctrine, and gave it a 

 certain degree of plausibility, by referring to numerous experiments : 

 he even affirmed, that the milk-like fluid of the drones might be 

 seen in the cells. The supposition that the drones performed this 

 important office, satisfactorily accounted for the prodigious num- 

 bers of them found in a hive. But Mr. Debraw does not seem to 

 have attended to this circumstance, that great numbers of eggs 

 are laid by the queen between the months of September and April, 

 which prove fertile, although in that season there exist no males 

 to supply the milk-like liquor. M. Huber is of opinion, that the 

 appearance of a fluid was merely an optical illusion, arising from 

 the reflection of the light at the bottom of the cell. He made the 

 direct experiment of rigidly excluding every male from a hive, 

 and yet found that eggs laid by the queen in this interval were as 

 fertile as when the males were admitted. Mr. Debraw's opinion, 

 therefore, must be erroneous ; for the fertility of these eggs must 

 have depended on the previous impregnation of the queen herself, 

 and not on any thing that could happen after they were deposited. 



M. Hattorf, in a memoir published in Schirach's work, endea- 

 voured to shew that the queen is impregnated by herself. This 

 was also M. Schirach's opinion ; and it seems to be that of Mr. 

 Bonner. It is an opinion, however, that requires no refutation. 

 The cautious Huber, remarking how much confusion had arisen 

 from making experiments with queens taken indiscriminately from 

 the hives (the source of the error just mentioned), thenceforward 

 selected those which were decidedly in a virgin state, and with 



