INTRODUCTION. V 



a false king or a tyrant ; they therefore called him the 

 usurping prince who plays on the flute to divert the bees ; 

 all due homage was, however, paid to him. 



At the close of the seventeenth century, three cele- 

 brated naturalists appeared. Swammerdam, a Dutch 

 physician, IVlaraldi, an astronomer, and Ferchault de 

 Reaumur, members of the Academy of Sciences, who, 

 by their researches and dissections, began to uplift the 

 veil which had hitherto concealed from us the most im- 

 portant and interesting features of the natural history 

 of the bee. They discovered that there were males and 

 females amongst the bees, and from that period, the theory 

 of De Montfort was admitted to be founded on truth. 



Amongst those who in later times have written on 

 bees, may be distinguished principally Schirach, who 

 discovered that the bees who have lost their queen can 

 raise another for themselves from larvae of their own 

 kind, by imparting to them a peculiar kind of nourish- 

 ment. (2) Riems, who discovered that there are 

 common bees, which lay eggs. (3) De Braw, who 

 attempted to establish by experiments and specious 

 arguments, that the eggs laid by the queen are fecun- 

 dated by the drone in the manner of fish ; and lastly, 

 Butler, who attributed to the bees a knowledge of the 

 art of solfaing. 



This may be considered as the second epoch of the 

 natural history of the bee. 



At the close of the eighteenth century, Mr. Huber, 



a blind naturalist, appeared, who directed his servant, 



or his servant directed him in those researches, for the 



supposed verity of which a surreptitious fame has been 



a 3 



