IMPRISONMENT OF THE YOUNG QUEEN. 179 



modation of Mr. Huber be for once of such a transparent 

 nature, as to render the motions, evolutions, and transforma- 

 tions of its royal tenant pretty perceptible. Huber, however, 

 suspecting that some cavillers, like ourselves, might be dis- 

 posed to cast a shade of doubt over the veracity of his state- 

 ments, deems it necessary to impart the information, that 

 his discernment in this respect was quite clear, and in the first 

 place he saw that the silk of the cocoon was cut circularly, 

 but in this early stage of the emancipation of the young 

 queen, in what manner did the bees deport themselves ? 

 According to her own judgment, the young queen was in 

 every respect fully prepared to leave the cell ; her organic 

 structure was complete, and she was in a proper condition 

 to put herself at the head of the swarm and to perform the 

 important functions of her nature. The bees, however, from 

 a perverseness of disposition, or from some other cause, 

 which Mr. Huber very properly acknowledges he could not 

 discover, had made up their minds, that her majesty had 

 formed a wrong judgment of her condition, and conse- 

 quently that she ought to be thwarted in her intentions of 

 leaving her cell ; they therefore, in a very disloyal and 

 uncourteous manner, proceeded to imprison her majesty in 

 the cell, by soldering up the orifice with some layers of wax. 

 This Mr. Huber admits to have been a most extraordinary 

 act on the part of the bees, in which we do most perfectly 

 agree with him ; but with all the gravity becoming the man 

 who was about to astound the world with the discovery of a 

 most important fact, Mr. Huber proceeds to inform us, that 

 the queen no sooner found herself thus rudely treated by 

 her future subjects, than she set up a very distinct sound, a 

 kind of piping, or humming, the organ of which sound Mr. 

 Huber very justly and truly observes, he has not yet been 

 able to discover, and which we will venture to pronounce is 

 very like the north-west passage, decidedly undiscoverable. 

 Progressing however in his description of the birth of a 

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