DISCOVERIES OF HUBER. 11 



becoming the reprehensible promulgators of a series of errors 

 and absurdities, at variance with all the results of positive 

 experience, and, consequently, committing an irreparable 

 injury to the cause of science, we confess that we feel dis- 

 posed to treat such individuals with mere derision and ridi- 

 cule. The skill of the bees in music, and particularly in 

 solfaing, as advanced by Butler, may have obtained credence 

 in the unenlightened age in which he lived, but where is the 

 individual of the present day, gifted with even common un- 

 derstanding, who would not reject a notion so preposterous 

 and absurd, and treat it as the wild effervescence of a vi- 

 sionary brain ? And yet, strange to say, the powers with which 

 Huber invests his bees, extend to a far greater diversity of 

 miraculous operations, and are deeper involved in absurdity 

 and fallacy, than the wildest extravagances of Columella or 

 of Butler. The erection of fortifications — the administration 

 of the royal jelly — the art of colouring the combs — the 

 warming of apartments and green-houses by the heat of 

 hives — the faculty of the queen to strike the bees motionless, 

 and the murderous duels of the queens, form, indeed, but a 

 small portion of the miraculous discoveries of Huber, and 

 for which such a spurious fame has been awarded to him. 



Of all the early naturalists, the system of Schirach, in 

 regard to the natural history of the bee, deserves the most 

 particular notice, as, in reality, it differs very little from that 

 which is acknowledged at the present day, with the excep- 

 tion of the different kinds of bees invented by Huber, and 

 on the admission of which depend the truth and validity of 

 his system. It will, however, be seen on analyzing the follow- 

 ing system of Schirach, that Huber himself, is but an echoist 

 of that naturalist, as they agree in many of the fundamental 

 points, although they differ widely in the minutiae. 



Schirach considered the hive to consist of three kinds of 

 bees, (1) the queen — (2) the drones, being the males — and 

 (3) an intermediate sex, the working bees, to whom he 

 b 2 



