

Of their Sex, Sic» 7) 
pons 5 and therefore the Bees cannot be the females, and 
the Drones the males.* | 
The Drones are not ftrangers, OF foreigners, but n@- 
- tives, and one of the three eftates of the kingdom, (as 
above) and bred in a comb and cells, more fpacious than 
the reft, prepared on purpofe for them. . What then is 
their peculiar province? are they the Queen’s royal con- 
forts a as fome conjecture that their principal employ- 
ment is to furnifh the Queen with a numerous progenya 
or people the ftate with fubjects. : 
- By the anatomy of the Drone fome naturalifts have 
imagined, that they were the authors of generation. Yet 
that author obferves, that on the utmoft endeavours to 
find out, by prying with all attention imaginable what 
charaéter thefe Drones maintained in the ftate; all the 
obfervation he could make was this, that the Queen 
keeps herfelf retired in the upper chambers of the combs, 
and feldom makes her publick appearance. 
The learned greatly differ in’ their fentiments about 
thefe myfterious infects. Some late writers, as Butlers 
Purchas, Warder, affirms, the Drones are the males 5 
aud the only males; and though they are feen to engen- 
der with the Honey-Bees, yet without doubt they are 
the Male-Bees. 
Other authors, efpecially the ancients, with fome of 
the moderns are as pofitive, that the governing Bees are 
the males. 
~ Thus fome conclude they preferve and propagate their 
{pecies by copulation ; which others queftion, and fome 
ae E 2  pofitively 
* Cenerat. Lib. 3. ¢, 10. 
+ Nat, Delin, Dial, 6 p» 891 
