OBJECTIONS TO HUBEr's SYSTEM. 57 



the chief pillars of Huber's system. It has been quoted, as 

 a verified case, in the elementary works on entomology ; it 

 stands in the pages of all the Encyclopaedias, with the excep- 

 tion of the Cyclopaedia Edinensis, and the London Cyclo- 

 paedia, as a principal feature in the natural history of the bee ; 

 whereas such a startling proposition as a perpetually fecun- 

 dated ovarium should have made the compilers of those 

 works hesitate, before they admitted into their pages such 

 an incoherent stretch of fancy, at the sacrifice of truth and 

 common sense. 



Huber was not insensible to the force of the objection, 

 which was raised to the fecundation of the queen by a single 

 drone, and the consequent inutility of eight hundred or a 

 thousand drones being born, when a single one was sufficient 

 for all the procreating purposes of the hive, and not only for 

 that particular season, but for the whole life of the queen. 

 In order, therefore, to supersede that objection, Huber ob- 

 serves, that it is actually necessary that the males should be 

 numerous, in order that the queen may have the chance of 

 meeting with one of them, and, thus, nature is made to create 

 nine hundred and ninety-nine useless creatures, in order to 

 enable the queen, in her aerial excursions, to come into con- 

 tact with the remaining one of the thousand. Supposing, 

 however, according to the dictum of Huber, that the single 

 act of coition be sufficient to fecundate the ovarium of the 

 queen for the present year, and thereby fructify every egg, 

 that may be generated in it, we are then entitled to draw the 

 conclusion, that in the subsequent spring, a fresh act of 

 coition would be requisite in order to fecundate the eggs of 

 the current year; but this condition according to Huber is 

 by no means necessary, for although nine hundred or a thou- 

 sand drones may be born, the queen has no occasion what- 

 ever for their services ; her ovarium having been fecundated 

 the preceding year, and as the vivifying principle is still 

 active, the same process of multiplication would go on, 



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