196 Of Bee-bread and Wax. 
food which the bees take, contributes to the for- 
mation of wax, in the fame manner as all the 
food which a cow eats contributes to the pro- 
duction of milk: or, (to adopt a more near fi- 
~mile from the infect tribe,) as all the food 
which a fpider takes, contributes not only to 
the nourifhment of the animal, but to the pro- 
dution of the fubftance of the cob-web from its 
body. Numberlefs other analogies in nature 
might be adduced in favour of the probability 
ofthis theory. The filk, for inftance, br roduced 
from the body of the filk worm, is a fabftance as - 
different from that of the animal ae | or of the 
mulberry leaf it feeds on, as wax is from that 
of the body of the bee, or of the honey or flow- 
er fhe fucks. And: the excrefcence produced 
an the human ear, which alfo goes by the name 
of wax, is cettamly a fubftance ‘as different 
from that of the body which produces it, as) 
either the one or the other. Upon the whole, 
until I meet with a more probable theory, fup- 
ported by facts, I muft give it as my humble 
opinion, that the wax is either produced from 
the bodies of the bees alone, or rather that the 
bees can fpeedily convert what they bring from 
the flowers into it, and therewith build their 
combs, and feal up both their young and their 
honey. | CHAP 
f 
