The Progress of the Race 
acquainted with only a few of them, we have 
since then observed a few more; but hun- 
dreds, thousands perhaps, have hitherto 
been noticed only by hasty and ignorant 
travellers. The habits of those that are 
known to us have undergone no change 
since the author of the Memoirs published 
his valuable work; and the humble-bees, 
all powdered with gold, and vibrant as the 
sun’s delectable murmur, that in the year 
1730 gorged themselves with honey in the 
gardens of Charenton, were absolutely identi- 
cal with those that to-morrow, when April 
returns, will be humming in the woods of 
Vincennes, but a few yards away. From 
Réaumur’s day to our own, however, is but 
as the twinkling of an eye; and many lives 
of men, placed end to end, form but a 
second in the history of Nature’s thought. 
II! 
Although the idea that our eyes nave fol- 
lowed attains its supreme expression in our 
domestic bees, it must not be inferred there- 
from that the hive reveals no faults. There 
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