38 SENSE OF HEARING. 



cursory manner give us the result of his experience, but in 

 the end, he leaves the subject in its original doubt and 

 uncertainty. If, however, we enter upon a close analysis of 

 the opinions and statements of Huber on this particular sub- 

 ject, we find them as usual attended with the grossest contra- 

 diction ; and yet, amongst all the naturalists, who have ven- 

 tured upon the discussion of this most difficult department 

 of the history of the bee, there is no one, who ought less to 

 have denied to the bee the sense of hearing, than Huber ; for 

 in some very essential points, the actual truth and validity of 

 his system depend upon the existence of that sense, and with- 

 out it the whole machinery of the hive would be thrown into 

 disorder. The following instances will verify the foregoing 

 remark. According to the repeated experience of Huber, 

 all the young queens, when they are incarcerated in their 

 cells by the rebellious spirit of their subjects, are distinctly 

 heard by Huber to make a clacking or a humming noise, 

 and it puzzled him for a long time (of the truth of which 

 we have not the smallest doubt,) to discover for what intent 

 the queens emitted such a dolorous cry. After suggesting 

 many cases, one perhaps as possible and plausible as the 

 other, he at last alighted upon one, which he thought the 

 most probable of all probable ones, which was, that the 

 queens, from their long imprisonment, wanted something to 

 eat. His grounds for warranting him in forming that con- 

 jecture were, that the queens had not emitted the sound 

 beyond the period of a minute, before several bees were seen 

 to hasten to the assistance of the young queens, and it was 

 distinctly visible to Mr. Huber, that the queens projected 

 their proboscis out of the cell, and were immediately sup- 

 plied by the bees with the food for which they were craving. 

 Now in the description of this comico-farcical scene, does 

 not Huber clearly admit the sense of hearing to be actually 

 existing in the common bee ? for where would be the utility 

 of the queens uttering a particular sound, if the bees were 



