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LETTER XX. 
SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
PERFECT sociETIES —concluded. 
Havine given you a history sufficiently ample of the queen or female bee, 
T shall next add some account of the drone or male bee ; but this will not 
detain you long, since “to be born and die” is nearly the sum total of 
their story. Much abuse, from the earliest times, has been lavished upon 
this description of the inhabitants of the hive, and their indolence and 
gluttony have become proverbial. Indeed, at first sight, it seems extraor- 
dinary that seven or eight hundred individuals should be supported at the 
public expense, and to common appearance do nothing all the while, that 
may be thought to earn their living. But the more we look into nature, 
the more we discover the truth of that common axiom,— that nothing is 
made in vain. Creative Wisdom cannot be caught at fault. Therefore 
where we do not at present perceive the reasons of things, instead of cavilling 
at what we do not understand, we ought to adore in silence, and wait 
patiently till the veil is removed which, in any particular instance, conceals 
its final cause from our sight. The mysteries of nature are gradually 
opened to us, one truth making way for the discovery of another ; but 
still there will always be in nature, as well as in revelation, even in those 
things that fall under our daily observation, mysteries to exercise our faith 
and humility ; so that we may always reply to the caviller,— Thine own 
things and those that are grown up with thee hast thou not known ; how 
then shall thy vessel comprehend the way of the Highest ? ” 
Various have been the conjectures of naturalists, even in very recent 
times, with respect to the fertilisation of the eggs of the bee. Some have 
supposed,— and the number of males seemed to countenance the suppo- 
sition,— that this was effected after they were deposited in the cells. Of 
this opinion Maraldi seems to have been the author ; and it was adopted by 
Mr. Debraw of Cambridge, who asserts that he has seen the smaller 
males (those that are occasionally produced in cells usually appropriated 
to workers) introduce their abdomen into cells containing eggs and fer- 
tilise them : and that the eggs so treated proved fertile, while others that 
were not remained sterile. The common or large drones, which form the 
bulk of the male population of the hive, could not be generally destined to 
this office, since their abdomen, on account of its size, could only be m- 
troduced into male and royal cells. Bonnet, however, saw some motions 
of one of these drones, which, while it passed by those that were empty» 
appeared to strike with its abdomen the mouth of the cells containing 
