10 HUMBLE CREATURES. 



cock or a hen ? " would you not laugh at the absurd 

 inquiry, supposing that you believed it to be serious ? 

 Yet, if we are to credit the testimony of Professor 

 Siebold — one of the first physiologists of the day, — 

 accepted and endorsed by the opinion of our own 

 great anatomist Professor Owen, and others, such an 

 inquiry would be perfectly rational, were we to sub- 

 stitute the egg of a Bee for that of a hen. For we 

 are told that by the aid of the microscope it is pos- 

 sible to distinguish in a fresh-laid Bee's egg such 

 phenomena as will easily enable the observer to de- 

 termine whether the larva that would have been pro- 

 duced would be a drone or a worker (we say would 

 have been, because the experiment necessitates that 

 the yolk should be expressed), — in other words, to 

 determine whether it would have been a male or a 

 female. 



Now this is only one of a series of recent discoveries 

 that have invested the history of the Bee with great 

 additional interest, and these various phenomena we 

 shall endeavour in the succeeding Chapters to render 

 as clear and explicit as possible. Meanwhile, as there 

 is, no doubt, somewhere within yom- reach a peopled 

 hive, whatever may be the locality in which you re- 

 side, we would advise you to provide yourself with a 

 few specimens of the insect, so that you may be able 

 to examine the various parts as we describe them, 

 and thus derive additional pleasure from the investi- 

 gation. 



