224 FRANCIS HUBER. 



minute and intense observation exercised in his darling study. 

 As with our prince of poets, "a drop serene" 1 had "quenched" 

 his " orbs " of vision ; nor would he for their recovery undergo 

 the usual operation. Previous to this affliction he had formed 

 an attachment to Mademoiselle Aimee Pullein, daughter of a 

 Swiss magistrate, who opposed the marriage of the lovers on 

 the ground of the young man's blindness. No sooner, how- 

 ever, did the lady arrive at an age which gave her (at least in 

 her own opinion) a right of judging for herself, than (after 

 refusing offers of greater promise) she united her lot with that 

 of the blind yet loving Huber, with whom forty years of sub- 

 sequent happiness, wherein she was his secretary, his observer, 

 and the sharer, not only of his researches, but of the enthu- 

 siasm with which he followed them, gave her no cause to 

 repent her choice. Even when deprived by death of his affec- 

 tionate helpmate, the blind and then aged Huber was not left 

 destitute of woman's supporting tenderness, which, in the 

 person of a married daughter, Madame Molin, waited on him 

 to the hour of his death, in the year 1831, at the age of 

 eighty-one. 2 



From the bees' historian come we at last to bees themselves. 

 Close at hand, from a border of mignonette, we hear the 

 voice of the " Oriental Deburah," humming cheerfully of 

 pleasure mingled with labour. And who in this busy little 

 creature can doubt their union, as we see her rolling amidst 

 her golden riches, adroitly brushing the precious dust from off 

 her antlers into the curious panniers with which her thighs are 

 furnished to receive it? 



Now, her baskets are full laden, heaped with orange pollen 

 high above their brims ; but an elastic fringe of hairs by which 

 these are surrounded hinders their contents from being over- 

 turned. Our collector's task is completed for the morning, 



1 Gutta serena. a Huber died at Lausanne. 



