118 SYSTEM OF SCHIRACH. 



whole of the system is entirely hypothetical, unsupported by 

 any valid or positive proofs, and it has been received into 

 the natural history of the bee on the mere authority of one 

 individual, whose pretended discoveries have never been 

 verified by actual experiment; and in the majority of cases, 

 where those discoveries have been submitted to the test of 

 a rigid examination, they have been found to possess no 

 foundation whatever in truth. If we consult the compila- 

 tions of Kirby, Rennie, Duncan, and Bevan, we find merely 

 a repetition of the unverified statements of Huber, with 

 scarcely a single fact to support them drawn from actual 

 experience, and unaccompanied by the slightest indication 

 of a deep and systematic research into the systems of other 

 naturalists, who possess a greater claim to our sanction and 

 consideration, than either Schirach, Huber, Lombard, or 

 Feburier. If we consult the modern authors of France, we 

 perceive a determined opposition and a dissent to the 

 opinions of Huber, mingled with no little portion of ridicule, 

 administered not only to the blind naturalist himself, but to 

 all his advocates ; and we are convinced that we are pro- 

 moting the cause of science and of truth in seconding the 

 foreign naturalists in their endeavours to divest the history 

 of the bee of many of those fictions and absurdities of 

 which Huber is the parent, and which have been so servilely 

 adopted in this country by his numerous commentators. 



Schirach, to whom we are indebted for much valuable 

 information relative to the natural history of the bee, was a 

 strenuous advocate for this presumed power of the common 

 bee to generate a queen ; and he says, that in order to 

 accomplish that end, it is merely necessary that an egg, no 

 matter of whatever kind or sex it may be, should exist in 

 the comb, as the bees possess the astonishing power of 

 converting it by a process known only to themselves, into a 

 queen. Mr. Schirach herein however flatly contradicts 

 himself, for he subsequently describes, or attempts to 



