124 PERIFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
are three sorts of bees independent of each other; viz. 
male and female drones—male and female, I must not 
say gucens—call them what you will; and male and fe- 
male workers; and that each construct their own cells! ! ! 
Another writer, Mr. Huish, whose work has just made its 
appearance, and whose presumption can only be equalled 
by his ignorance’, denies most of the modern discove- 
ries, and asserts that the queen always remains a vir- 
gin!! Enough, however, upon this subject. I shall 
now endeavour to lay before you the best authenticated 
facts in the history of these animals ; but you must not 
expect an account of them complete in all its parts ; for, 
much as we know, Bonnet’s observation will still hold 
good: “ The more I am engaged in making fresh ob- 
servations upon bees, the more steadfast is my convic- 
tion, that the time is not yet arrived in which we can 
draw satisfactory conclusions with respect to their policy. 
It is only by varying and combiming experiments in a 
thousand ways, and by placing these industrious flies in 
circumstances more or less removed from their ordinary 
state, that we can hope to ascertain the right direction 
of their instinct, and the true principles of their govern- 
ment?. 
What I have further to say concerning these admira- 
ble creatures, will be principally taken from the two 
authors who have given the clearest and most satisfac- 
tory account of them, Reaumur and the elder Huber; 
* The following passage, in which he speaks of the Sphinx Atropos 
as belonging to Linné’s ¢hree lepidopterous genera, will sufficiently 
justify this assertion, The Death-headed Sphinx (Sphinx Atropos) is 
a great butterfly, and belongs also to the genus Phalene, p. 126!!! 
4 (Euvr. x. 194— 
