52 THE APIARY; OR, 



remarkable for his sagacity and for the devotion he bore for his 

 master. Huber practised him in the art of observation, directed 

 him to his researches by questions adroitly combined, and aided by 

 the recollections of his youth, and by the testimonies of his wife 

 and friends, he rectified the assertions of his assistant, and became 

 enabled to form in his own mind a true and perfect image of the 

 manifest facts. ' I am much more certain,' said he, smiling, to a 

 scientific friend, • of what I state than you are, for you publish 

 what your own eyes only have seen, while I take the mean among 

 many witnesses.' This is, doubtless, very plausible reasoning, but 

 very few persons will by it be rendered distrustful of their own 

 eyesight." 



The results of Huber's observations were published in 1792, in 

 the form of letters to Ch. Bonnet, under the title of "Nouvelles 

 Observation sur les Abeilles." This work made a strong impression 

 upon many naturalists, not only because of the novelty of the facts 

 stated, and the excellent inductive reasoning employed, but also on 

 account of the rigorous accuracy of the observations, recorded, when 

 it was considered with what an extraordinary difficulty the author 

 had to struggle. 



Huber retained the clear faculties of his observant mind until 

 his death, which took place on the 22nd of December, 1831. Most 

 of the facts relating to the impregnation of the queen, the formation 

 of cells, and the whole economy of the bee-community as discovered 

 and described by Huber, have received full confirmation from the 

 investigations of succeeding naturalists. 



