VOL. LXVII.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 127 



bees laying a particular kind of eggs appropriated to the production of other 

 queens, is erroneous. 



The great advantage accruing from these experiments is that of forming 

 artificial swarms or new colonies at pleasure, and thus increasing the propagation 

 of the insect for the advantage of commerce and the arts. 



The practice, according to Mr. Schirach, has already extended itself through 

 many parts of Germany, and even of Poland. Mr. Debraw's experiments were 

 begun nearly two years before Mr. Schirach's work had appeared. 



If^. Account of a Portrait of Copernicus, presented to the Royal Society by 

 Dr, Wof, of Dantzich : extracted from a Letter of his to Mr. Magellan, 

 F. R. S. Translated from the French, p. 33. 



The captain who will deliver this to you, will also put into your hands a 

 copy of an original portrait of the famous Copernicus, which I beg you will 

 present to the r. s., as a testimony of my devotion and attachment to that 

 respectable body. The original, from which it is copied with the greatest 

 accuracy, is in the possesion of the Chamberlain Hussarzewski. We have a 

 portrait of Copernicus in the great church at Thorn in a kind of mausoleum, 

 erected about 30 years after the death of that great man, by a physician of that 

 town, who is said to have been one of his relations. 



Hartknoch has inserted a print taken from this portrait in his Chronicles of 

 Prussia. Our original has been compared with that of the mausoleum, and the 

 features of the face are found to be perfectly similar, but there is a great 

 difference in the dress. That at Thorn represents him kneeling before an altar, 

 in the attitude of a priest officiating ; in ours he is clothed in fur, with his hair 

 more carefully dressed, and as it were in a habit of ceremony. The painter of 

 it was certainly one of the old Italians, as will appear by comparing it with other 

 works of those masters ; for instance, it is known that the painters of those 

 times, and even Raphael, never gave to the eyes that brightness which the most 

 indifferent artists within this century never fail to express in their portraits : not 

 but what the serene and seemingly inanimated countenances of the former 

 artists came nearer to nature than the sparkling eyes which are now all the 

 fashion. This however is a proof that the portrait is at least 150 years old ; the 

 inscription shows that the painter was an Italian : and it must further be 

 observed, that it is now 2 centuries since they left off painting on wood. 



The history of this portrait is as follows : it was formerly in the collection of 

 Saxe Gotha, where it was always considered as an original, which is even said to 

 appear from the archives of that court, and is the more probable, as the prince- 

 bishop of Warmia, who obtained it from the late duke of Saxe Gotha, was too 

 good a connoisseur and too cautious to be deceived in this respect. That 



