522 
HUBER 
Even after laying aside the thought of lit¬ 
erary sideliners like Virgil of old and Mae¬ 
terlinck of today and others like them (are 
there any others like them, tho?—will 
there ever be?), men who have immortal¬ 
ized the charm of the bee, there are still 
practical apiculturists, experimenters and 
scientific investigators whose names are 
dear to the entire beekeeping fraternity. 
From among them all, could only one be 
selected for a sketch w T ho would not choose 
the great Swiss naturalist—blind Francois 
Huber? It is good to renew, in even the 
small measure of such an article as this, 
our acquaintance with this dauntless soul. 
He was horn in Geneva, Switzerland, in 
1750. What a city and what a time for a 
scientist to be born in! Horace Benedict 
de Saussure, the eminent Swiss physicist 
and geologist, who at 22 years of age ac¬ 
cepted the chair of physics and natural 
philosophy at the University of Geneva, 
was a romping boy of 10 years when Hu¬ 
ber, his future famous pupil, was born. 
Charles Bonnet, another great Swiss nat¬ 
uralist and philosopher, was 30, but he 
guessed no more than the boy De Saussure 
how great and dear a friend was born in 
his own native city that day. This was the 
same Charles Bonnet who had startled the 
scientific world 10 years before, when only 
20, with a paper on aphids, in which par- 
thenogenetie reproduction was first de¬ 
scribed. No wonder this achievement made 
him, young tho he was, a corresponding 
member of the French Academy of 
Sciences. This was a full century before 
Johann Dzierzon, the pastor of Karls- 
markt, grew from a sideline beekeeper into 
a. special student of apiculture and with 
the aid of his detachable cells discovered 
the partlienogenetic origin of drones. 
Huber’s own family was well known and 
wealthy. He probably never remembered 
his great-aunt, Marie Huber, for she died 
when he was only three years old; but she 
was a literary woman of wide interests, not 
only a tireless writer on religious and theo¬ 
logical subjects, but also the translator of 
the Spectator. Then there was another rel¬ 
ative with a fine chemical laboratory, who, 
alas, could not, even in the modern, pro¬ 
gressive, scientific spirit of the Geneva of 
the mid-eighteenth century, lay aside his 
stubborn belief in alchemy. How long and 
patiently they labored, those old alchem¬ 
ists! And there was the boy’s own father, 
Jean Huber, from whom he inherited his 
deep love of nature and keen powers of 
observation. 
What a brilliant, gay, light-hearted, 
charming and likable gentleman this Jean 
Huber must have been. Known as a wit, 
he had also many and varied talents—he 
was a poet and a musician, a painter and 
a sculptor, and he served for many years 
as a soldier. But he took life lightly, toss¬ 
ing the hours about like bright-colored balls 
to be played with, and so made no lasting 
mark in any line, tho his “Observations on 
the Flights of Birds of Prey” won him con¬ 
siderable reputation. However, he was 
doubtless a delightfully entertaining daddy. 
What music he could make! How he loved 
the out-of-doors and what fascinating 
things he could discover there and what se¬ 
crets he could then tell about them! What 
strange and splendid specimens he had col¬ 
lected ! And what miracles he could per¬ 
form with a piece of paper and a pair of 
shears! Indeed, the cutting out of land¬ 
scapes and silhouettes from paper became 
such an art in his hands, that he may fairly 
be called its originator. How he must have 
amazed and delighted grown-ups as well 
as children that time he tore a profile of 
Voltaire from a card with his hands behind 
his back—and that other time when he 
broke his own record by so skillfully guid¬ 
ing and turning a flat piece of cheese that 
his cat ate out therefrom another profile 
of Voltaire! Fortunately only his bril¬ 
liance and talent descended to his son, and 
not the undue levity that undoubtedly 
marred his own career. 
This father’s library, his cabinets of spec¬ 
imens and his rich observations roused in 
the boy an early and unceasing love of 
nature, which was well developed into 
methodical observations at an age when few 
children have learned to observe at all. 
Then there were also the usual social activ¬ 
ities of the children of such families, and 
young Francois was sent to dancing school. 
So, too, was little Marie Lullin, whose fa¬ 
ther was one of the Magistrates of the 
Swiss Republic. They became childish 
sweethearts, these two. But oh, how little 
their child hearts guessed, as they followed 
