8 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 
number of experiments on the antenne, and ascertained that 
they are the organs of smell and feeling. 
Before citing his discoveries, we must pay our tribute of 
admiration to this wonderful man. (Plate III.) 
Huber, in early manhood, lost the use of his eyes. His 
opponents imagined that to state this fact would materially 
discredit his observations. And to make their case still 
stronger, they asserted that his servant, Francis Burnens, by 
whose aid he conducted his experiments, was only an igno- 
rant peasant. Now this so-called ‘‘ ignorant peasant’’ was a 
man of strong native intellect, possessing the indefatigable 
energy and enthusiasm indispensable to a good observer. 
He was a noble specimen of a self-made man, and rose to be 
the chief magistrate in the village where he resided. Huber 
has paid a worthy tribute to his intelligence, fidelity, pa- 
tience, energy and skill.* 
Ifuber’s work on bees is such an admirable specimen 
of the inductive system of reasoning, that it might well be ay 
studied as a model of the only way of investigating nature, 
so as to arrive at reliable results. 
21. Huber was assisted in his researches, not only by 
Burnens, but by his own wife, to whom he was betrothed be- 
fore the loss of his sight, and who nobly persisted in marry- 
ing him, notwithstanding his misfortune and the strenuous, 
dissuasions of her friends. They lived longer than the ordi- 
nary term of human life in the enjoyment of great domestic 
happiness, and the amiable naturalist, through her assiduous 
attentions, scarcely felt the loss of his sight. 
22. Milton is believed by many to have been a better 
poet in consequence of his blindness; and it is highly prob- 
able that Huber was a better Apiarist from the same cause. 
* A single fact will show the character of the man. It became necessary, in a 
certain experiment, to examine separately all the bees in two hives. ‘‘Burnens 
spent eleven days in performing this work, and during the whole time he scarcely 
allowed himself any relaxation, but what the relief of his eyes required.’’ 
