344 



THE PHILOSOPHY 



tends its trunk, opens Its mouth, which lies a little beyond the teeth, 

 and, like ruminating animals, forces up the honey into that cavity. 

 The hungry bee knows how to take advantage of this hofpitable 

 invitation. With the point of its trunk it fucks the honey from the 

 other's mouth. When not flopped on the road, the bee proceeds to 

 the hive, and in the fame manner offers its honey to thofe who are 

 at work, as if it meant to prevent the necefTity of quitting their la- 

 bour in order to go in queft of food. In bad weather, the bees feed 

 upon the honey laid up in open cells ; but they never touch thefe 

 refervoirs when their companions are enabled to fupply them with 

 frefli honey from the fields. But the mouths of thofe cells which 

 are deftined for preferving honey during winter, they always cover 

 with a lid or thin plate of wax. 



Though not ftridly connefted with the prefent fubjeft, we can- 

 not refrain from giving fome account of the ingenious Mr Debraw's 

 difcoveries concerning the fex of bees, and the manner in which 

 their fpecies is multiplied *. It was almoft univerfally believed, 

 both by ancients and moderns, that bees, like other animals, propa- 

 gated by an actual intercourfe of the male and female, though it 

 never could be perceived by the mofl: attentive obfervers. Pliny re- 

 marks, that apium coitus 'uifus ejl nunquam ; and even the indefati- 

 gable Reaumur, notwithftanding the many minute refearches and 

 experiments he made concerning every part of the oeconomy of 

 bees, and though he reprefents the mother, or queen-bee, as a per- 

 fedt MefTalina, could never detect an adual intercourfe. From this 

 fmgular circumftance, Maraldi, in his obfervations upon bees "f, con- 

 jedtured that the eggs of bees, like thofe of fiflies, were impregnated 

 after they were depofited in the cells by the mother. He was far- 

 ther 



* See Philofophical Tranfaftions, ann. 1777, Part I. page 15. 

 f Hift. de I'Acad. de Scien. ann. 1712. 



