PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



105 



in themselves," says he, " like plants, the male and the fe- 

 male." 1 



Fables and absurdities, however, are not confined to the 

 ancients, nor even to those moderns who lived before Swam- 

 merdam, Maraldi, Reaumur, Bonnet, Schirach, John Hunter, 

 Huber, and their followers, by their observations and dis- 

 coveries had thrown so much light upon this interesting 

 subject. Even in our own times, a Neapolitan professor, 

 Monticelli, asserts, on the authority of a certain father 

 Tanoya, that in every hive there are three sorts of bees 

 independent of each other ; viz. male and female drones — 

 male and female, I must not say queens — call them what 

 you will — and male and female workers ; and that each 

 construct their own cells ! ! ! 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 observations 

 upon bees, the more steadfast is my conviction that the time 

 is not yet arrived in which we can draw satisfactory con- 

 clusions with respect to their policy. It is only by varying 

 and combining 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 government." 2 



What I have further to say concerning these admirable 

 creatures will be principally taken from the two authors who 

 have given the clearest and most satisfactory account of them, 

 Reaumur and the elder Huber ; though I shall add from 

 other sources such additional observations as may serve better 

 to elucidate their history. 



The society of a hive of bees, besides the young brood, 

 consists of one female or queen ; several hundreds of males or 

 drones ; and many thousand workers. 



The female, or queen, first demands our attention. Two 



1 Be Generat. Animal. I. iii. c. 10. 2 (Euvr. x. 194. 



