CONTRARIETY OF OPINIONS. 127 



different kind can be created, and neither Huber nor Dunbar 

 ventures to face this difficulty ; on the contrary, the former 

 places his whole reliance upon the royal jelly, which must 

 be destructive and creative at the same time, and the latter 

 has recourse to the simple elongation and expansion of the 

 cell, as if by such an act, the slightest effect could be pro- 

 duced in the alteration of the sexual character of the egg. 



Had the advocates for the alleged power of the common 

 bee to generate a coieen been uniform in their principles, 

 or been of one accord in regard to the manner in which it 

 is accomplished, a greater degree of validity might have been 

 attached to their hypothesis ; but it is not a little singular, 

 that, although all of them agree that the metamorphosis 

 can in reality be effected, yet all of them differ as to the 

 means employed for its accomplishment, whilst at the same 

 time, each of them pretends that his peculiar system is the 

 successful result of positive and repeated experiments. 

 This is in itself alone sufficient to throw the highest degree 

 of discredit on the very existence of such a power ; for if 

 Huber informs us that the metamorphosis can be effected 

 by the simple administration of some royal jelly, and another 

 theorist informs that it can be effected by the expansion of 

 the cell, and a third steps in with the information that it can 

 be effected by some unknown prolific effluvium emanating 

 from the common bee, to which of these systems are we 

 called upon to attach our belief? Mr. Rennie, although he 

 publicly declares that he does not easily bend to authority, 

 however high, has so far contradicted himself by bending 

 most servilely to the authority of Huber as an infallible 

 experimentalist, and he has bruited his discoveries to the 

 world as decisive of many of the contested points in the 

 natural history of the bee, and not only of the bee itself, but 

 also of its productions, as will be seen, when we come to 

 treat of the origin of wax as laid down by Huber, and 

 attempted to be confirmed by the acquiescence of Mr. 



