108 SUPERSTITIOUS CUSTOMS IN SWITZERLAND. 



he collected into one form, the wildest theories of the foreign 

 apiarians, and sent them into the world as the result of his 

 own observations. This opinion, although it may appear 

 illiberal, is in a great degree corroborated by the circum- 

 stance, that Huber, from a natural infirmity in his eyes, was 

 wholly disabled from prosecuting his researches into the 

 natural economy of the bee, and, consequently, that he relied 

 solely on the skill and information of his servant Francois 

 Beurnens for the veracity of those singular discoveries, 

 which under the sanction of his name have been sent forth 

 into the world, but which will never stand the test of a rigid 

 and scientific examination. Now this same Francois Beurnens 

 was a rude uneducated Swiss peasant, with a mind immersed 

 in all the prejudices of his country, and who pertinaciously 

 adhered to many of the Swiss customs in the management 

 of bees, which have for their basis the grossest ignorance 

 and superstition. Thus for instance, when any of the family 

 died, in which Beurnens was the domestic, he turned all the 

 hives in the garden topsy turvy, in which condition, they 

 were obliged to remain until after the funeral, as it was most 

 proper and becoming that the bees should be made to sym- 

 pathize with the loss which the family had sustained, and 

 this custom arises from a superstitious notion prevalent in 

 Switzerland, that the bees would fret themselves to death, 

 if an opportunity were not afforded them of witnessing the 

 funeral of any deceased member of the family. It would 

 however, be entering into irrelevant matter to specify any 

 other of the superstitious customs, peculiar to the land of 

 Huber in regard to bees, but after giving him and his 

 assistant all the merit which is due to them for the dis- 

 coveries they did make, it must be admitted, that in order to 

 attach the slightest belief to some of their statements, the 

 Genevese bees must in their nature and economy be of a 

 different species, and subject to different laws and habits 

 than the British bees ; otherwise the experience of the 



