Insects. 3521 



ocular demonstration has at least once been obtained of the " coitus apum," that is, if 

 the author is to be credited. He writes anonymously, in the form of a dialogue be- 

 tween two imaginary personages, Clarissa and Eugenio ; and though " almost all his 

 facts are borrowed from M. de Reaumur, whose expressions he often copies" (says the 

 Preface), "'tis still Eugenio (i. e., the author) who is accountable for the use he makes 

 of them." Not to shock ears polite, I do not quote the whole of the actual words (the 

 author was a Frenchman!), but merely give the substance of them. Eugenio tells 

 Clarissa that a queen was brought to him on one occasion : as a supernumerary she 

 appears to have accompanied a swarm the evening before, but to have either been re- 

 jected by the bees, or to have attempted to return home, but having missed her way, 

 she had dropped on the ground near the hive, where she was found. " The good con- 

 dition of the wings, and her colour, made me conclude " (says the author) " that she 

 was yet young; and the bulk of her body, not so great as that of a female ready to lay, 

 seemed to prove that she had no other eggs but such as were extremely small. I shut 

 her up in a glass, where I put likewise a male with her." This male at first, he says, 

 took no notice of the queen, though she was unsparing of her caresses of him. These 

 endearments on the part of the queen were, however, successful at last. Intercourse 

 took place several times during the space of three or four hours, at the end of which 

 time the drone died, as it were in an interval of repose ; but his body remained all 

 that day attached to the queen, who took no notice of another drone, which was put 

 under the glass at the same time. Both drones were taken away at night, and a fresh 

 drone given to the same queen next morning, as well as a drone to another queen, 

 which had been brought to the author to repeat the experiment. "The two females," 

 continues the author, " behaved in the same manner in which the first had done the 

 day before, with a male in perfect health." Now this account, up to a certain point, 

 tallies as nearly as possible with Wildman's story of Reaumur's experiment, some- 

 what similar in kind, (see Wildman, 3rd ed., 1778, pp. 69, 70). Is it a mere embel- 

 lishment of Reaumur's facts, or is the whole story a detail of personal observation ? — 

 that is the question. But the author writes as a man who had seen with his own eyes. 

 Huber, who came after the author of ' The Natural History of Bees,' informs Bonnet, 

 in the first of his celebrated letters, that he had seen passages of love, similar to those 

 which Reaumur saw between queens and drones, and in fact believed he had witnessed 

 a kind of union between them in the hive, but so short and imperfect that it was un- 

 likely to effect impregnation ; neither did they produce it, as he satisfactorily proved, 

 for these queens laid no eggs. But for Huber's other experiments, and their unmis- 

 takeable results, in proof that queens seek intercourse with the drones in the open air, 

 I should not have been disposed to reject the theory of intercourse at home, from the 

 circumstance that he did not succeed in obtaining a queen so impregnated. There 

 are so many contingencies to be met in experiments with bees, that it is no single ob- 

 servation, however correct in itself, that will suffice to establish a fact. However, to 

 cut the matter short, I must say that, equally with Mr. Newman, I unhesitatingly as- 

 sent to his conclusions. Reverting once more to the subject of " light in the dwell- 

 ing," whether tolerated or not by bees, I may mention that I put a small swarm into a 

 straw hive, with a pane of glass at the back, on the 31st of May. Though this pane 

 is uncovered, I do not find the bees in the least annoyed by the light constantly per- 

 vading the hive by day ; nor have they yet smeared it over, or attempted to do so. 

 The critical time however will be when the comb is worked up to the glass, which it 





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