FOOD ADMINISTERED TO THE LARVAE. 343 



others, particularly of Mr. Ducouedic, have confirmed us in 

 the opinion, that no food whatever is administered to the 

 larvae. Huber, however, and we quote his own words, 

 considers that the following deductions are perfectly con- 

 sistent with the principles of sound logic. We have how- 

 ever always been taught to consider it as one of the axioms 

 of logic, that if the premises be false, the deductions must 

 be false also ; and therefore Mr. Huber, before he called 

 upon us to admit his conclusions, should have first con- 

 vinced us of the truth of his premises. We know, he says, 

 that a particular kind of aliment is conveyed to the royal 

 cells, whereas, in fact, we do not know any such thing, 

 but we do know the exact contrary. Huber informs us that 

 the jelly makers place the aliment not only before the mouth 

 of the larva, but also around its body ; from which we were 

 led to expect that the worm or larva, floating in a kind of nu- 

 tritious menstruum, might, perhaps, by a particular opera- 

 tion of nature absorb the vivifying principles, without any 

 part of the aliment being submitted to the elaboration of the 

 digestive organs. In this calculation, however, we found 

 ourselves deceived, for Huber informs us, that the larva, 

 being able to move only in a spiral direction, keeps inces- 

 santly turning to take the jelly deposited before it. This is 

 all very plausible, provided Mr. Huber had succeeded in 

 convincing us, that the insect ever moves at all, which we 

 hesitate not most positively to deny, for the larva of the 

 bees appears to be divested of all power of locomotion, 

 lying at the bottom of the cell in the form of a small maggot. 

 It then assumes the nymphal state, when it takes an hori- 

 zontal position, in which it remains until it emerges from 

 the cell. The motion of the larva in a spiral direction at the 

 time when the royal jelly is administered, is one of the least 

 happy of Huber's fictions ; but even granted, that the larva 

 does move in that direction, so as to be able to imbibe the 

 jelly, which is placed before it, in what direction must it move 

 to imbibe that, which is placed around it ? It must be able 



