22 liisects. 



Notice of Works lately published on the Hive Bee.^' 



Tig TYiV /ucAiTTav, rw (70(pY\v mv E^yccriv 

 T£Ci}/^er^£iv ettho-s^ hoci r^icopopag 

 OiKng synpEiv l^ayovm KTia-(jLarm. 



PiSIDIUS. 



" Among all the creatures which our bountiful God has made for 

 the use and service of man, in respect of great profit and small cost, 

 of their ubiquity, or being in all countries, of their comely order and 

 continual labour, the bees are most worthy our admiration." So says 

 Sir J. More, and so thinks Mr. Cotton : for his treatise on bees entitled 

 'My Bee-Book' is a rare and pleasant book, not only in its original 

 matter — if anything concerning bees can be called original — but in 

 its varied a^d interesting reprints. In the history of the hive bee 

 are two eras ; the first extending from the invention of letters to the 

 publication of Huber's "observations;" the second from that date 

 down to the present time. During the first period the bee was zea- 

 lously cultivated, its instinct extolled, its labours admired, its honey 

 prized, and its history faithfully recorded, more especially by Reau- 

 mur; yet in the work of poor blind Huber, there is something so 

 complete, so masterly, so ably recorded, that from the moment of its 

 appearance there has been no second authority consulted — no other 

 soui'ce of information. His very errors — and some slight errors have 

 crept in — are copied with a religious and unhesitating faith that be- 

 speaks more than language the estimation in which he is held. The 

 works dated ante Hiiher were immediately laid aside, and, like Virgil's 

 poetical recipe for the creation of bees, have been regarded as little 

 better than apocryphal. 



It is or it ought to be generally known that Huber was blind from 

 his early youth, and that the delightful history of the honey bee re- 

 corded in his works is the result of the patient watching of his faithful 

 servant Francis Bumens. This man was first employed to read works 

 on Natural History to his master, and it was only by degrees that he 

 was entrusted to make those observations which have acquired for his 

 master such universal reputation. " We began" says Huber "to mark 

 the bees in glass hives ; we repeated the experiments of M. de Reau- 

 mur, and we obtained exactly the same results when we employed the 



* My Bee-Book. By William Charles Cotton, M.A. London : J. G. F. & J. 

 Rivington. 1842. 



The Honey Bee, its Natural History, Physiology and Management. By Edward 

 Bevan, M.D. London: Van Voorst, Paternoster Row. 1838. 



