196 FKANCIS HUBER. 



of day, or to look into the minuter wonders of the animate 

 creation. Yet most marvellously and kindly in his case, as 

 in many others of similar privation, was that privation bal- 

 anced. Through the eyes of others, aided by his own mental 

 vision of surpassing clearness, he was enabled to keep watch 

 on the works and ways of the little people of the hive, to 

 throw a blaze of light on their heretofore obscure history, 

 and to become, for the wise recreation of future generations, 

 as well as for the amusement of his own otherwise dark hours, 

 their most interesting and circumstantial chronicler. 



Ocular observation has completely verified the marvellous 

 details of bee economy first related by their blind discoverer, 

 and in all that he describes, nothing, perhaps, is so won- 

 derful, more admirable, or more interesting, than the accuracy 

 of his details, evidences as they are of the glorious supe- 

 riority of mind over matter- trophies of persevering victory 

 over a bodily impediment, which, but for the energy of all- 

 subduing will, would have shut him out for ever from that 

 field of research, to whose entrance only his sight had guided 

 him. 



But besides being happy in his own energetic mind, Huber 

 was also happy in the providential blessing and possession of 

 friends friends who, in the grand pursuit of his darkened 

 but not gloomy life, were without a metaphor " eyes to the 

 blind " the blind object of their affectionate regard and 

 admiration. These were, in the first instance, Francis Burens, 



