415 



LETTER XX. 



SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 

 PERFECT SOCIETIES COncludcd. 



Having given you a history sufficiently ample of the queen or female bee, 

 I shall next add some account of the drone or 7nale bee ; but this will not 

 detain you long, since "to be born, and die" is nearly the sum total of 

 their story. Much abuse, from the earliest times, has been lavished upon 

 this "description of the inhabitants of the hive, and their indolence and 

 gluttony have become proverbial. Indeed, at first sight, it seems extraor- 

 dinary that seven or eight hundred individuals should be supported at the 

 public expense, and to common appearance do nothing all the while, that 

 may be thought to earn their living. But the more we look into nature, 

 the more we discover the truth of that common axiom, — that nothing is made 

 in vain. Creative Wisdom cannot be caught at fault. Therefore, where 

 we do not at present perceive the reason of things, instead of cavilling at 

 what we do not understand, we ought to adoi'e in silence, and wait 

 patiently till the veil is removed which, in any particular instance, con- 

 ceals its final cause from our sight. The mysteries of nature are gradually 

 opened to us, one truth making way for the discovery of another : but 

 still there will always be in nature, as well as in revelation, even in those 

 things that fall under our daily observation, mysteries to exercise our faith 

 and humility ; so that we may always reply to the caviller, — " Thine own 

 things and those that are grown up with thee hast thou not known ; how 

 then shall thy vessel comprehend the way of the highest? " 



Various have been the conjectures of naturalists, even in very recent 

 times, with respect to the fertilization of the eggs of the bee. Some 

 have supposed, — and the number of males seemed to countenance the 

 supposition, — that this was effected after they were deposited in the cells. 

 Of this opinion Maraldi seems to have been the author ; and it was adopt- 

 ed by Mr. Debraw of Cambridge, who asserts that he has seen the smaller 

 males (those that are occasionally produced in cells usually appropriated to 

 workers) introduce their abdomen into cells containing eggs, and fertilize 

 them ; and that the eggs so treated proved fertile, while others that were 

 not remained sterile. The common or larije drones, which form the bulk 

 of the male population of the hive, could not be generally destined to this 

 office, since their abdomen, on account of its size, could only be intro- 

 duced into male and royal cells. Bonnet, however, saw some motions of 

 one of these drones, which, while it passed by those that were empty, 

 appeared to strike with its abdomen the mouth of the cells containing 

 eggs.^ Swammerdam thought that the female was impregnated by effluvia 

 which issued from the male.^ Reaumur, from some proceedings that he 



> Bonnet, X. 259. « BibJ. Nat. i. 221. b. ed. Hill. 



