At all events, the British public are indebted to the present translator; who has executed his task with care and fidelity, and who appears to be no mean proficient in that department of Natural History to which we have just alluded.

It is well known to continental naturalists, that M. Huber de voted a very considerable portion of his life to the observation of the manners and habits of those interesting little creatures which supply us with the sweets of their labours, and astonish us by the wonders of their social economy. The patience and ingenuity which characterize his investigations, and the intimate corres pondence which he cultivated with Bonnet, impart additional authenticity and value to his communications.

It is a remarkable circumstance (says the translator) that he laboured under a defect in the organs of vision, which obliged him to employ an assistant in his experiments. Thus these discoveries may be said to acquire double authority. But independent of this the experiments are so judiciously adapted to the purposes in view, and the conclusions so strictly logical, that there is evidently very little room for error. The talents of Francis Burnens, this philosophic as sistant, had long been devoted to the service of the author, who, after being many successive years in this manner aided in his researches, was at last deprived of him by some unfortunate accident.'

Our object, then, is net to criticize M. Huber's statements, since all the circumstances with which they are accompanied sufficiently remove every thing like doubt, at least from our own minds but we apprehend that we shall render an acceptable service to many of our readers, if we present them with a summary of some of the principal results.

M. Huber's observations are contained in thirteen letters addressed to the celebrated Bonnet of Geneva: but they manifest little of the liveliness or digressive reflections which are so much adapted to the spirit of epistolary compositions. They are rather to be considered as a series of propositions related with gravity and undeviating connection with the subject, and deriving their interest from the striking and satisfactory information which they convey. It may be proper to premise that the experiments were all made with what the author calls leaf or book lives. Aware of the inconveniences attending those of glass, constructed on Réaumur's principles, he took several small fir boxes, a foot square, and fifteen lines wide, and joined them by hinges, so that they could be opened and shut like the leaves of a book.

When using a hive of this description, (he says) we took care to fix a comb in each frame, and then introduced all the bees neces sary for each particular experiment. By opening the different divisions successively, we daily inspected both surfaces of every comb. There was not a single cell where we could not distinctly see what

passed

passed at all times; nor a single bee, I may almost say, with which we were not particularly acquainted. Indeed, this construction is nothing more than the union of several very flat hives which may be separated. Bees, in such habitations, must not be visited before their combs are securely fixed in the frames, otherwise, by falling out they may kill or hurt them, as also irritate them to that degree that the observer cannot escape stinging, which is always painful, and sometimes dangerous but they soon become accustomed to their situátion, and in some measure tamed by it; and, in three days, we may begin to operate on the hive, to open it, remove part of the combs, and substitute others, without the bees exhibiting too formidable symptoms of displeasure. You will remember, Sir, that on visiting my retreat, I shewed you a hive of this kind that had been a long time in experiment, and how much you were surprized that the bees so quietly allowed us to open it.'

The first three letters relate to the impregnation of the queen-bee. On this part of his subject, the author first refutes the opinions of Swammerdam, Debraw, and the Lusatian observers, and then establishes, in the most convincing manner, two very important facts; namely, that the queen is impregnated by union with the male, and that this union is accomplished in the air.-Some physical and anatomical details occur on this point, which we refrain from particularizing.- Various experiments, which seem to be perfectly conclusive, are also adduced to prove that, when the sexual union is retarded beyond the twentieth day, only an imperfect impregnation takes place; and the queen, instead of laying the eggs of workers and males equally, will lay none but those of males. M. Huber candidly avows his inability to explain his own discovery. He concludes, however, that, as no fact in nature is unique, it is most probable that the same peculiarity will also be found in other animals. An extremely curious object of research would be to consider insects in this new point of view. I say insects,' continues he, for I do not conceive that any thing analogous will be found in other species of animals. The experiments now suggested would necessarily begin with insects the most analogous to bees; as wasps, humble bees, mason bees, all species of flies, and the like. Some experiments might also be made. on butterflies; and, perhaps, an animal might be found whose retarded fecundation would be attended with the same effects as that of queen bees.'

M. Huber's researches likewise completely corroborate M. Schirach's beautiful experiments on the conversion of common worms into royal worms. It appears, however, from the details, that the German observer mistook when he affirmed that the subjects of this conversion should be three days old, since the experiment succeeds equally well with those of two days

R 4

old,

old, or even with those which have been only a few hours in existence. M. Schirach had, moreover, too rashly maintained that the females were incapable of laying royal eggs.

The following sentences, though apparently hypothetical, are ultimately reduced to truisms by the test of various experi ments, and afford a satisfactory confirmation of the discovery of fertile workers made by M. Rienis.

• From M. Schirach's elegant discoveries, it is beyond all doubt that common bees are originally of the female sex. They have received from nature the germs of an ovary, but she has allowed its expansion only in the particular case of their receiving a certain aliment while a worm. Thus it must be the peculiar object of inquiry whether the fertile workers get that aliment while worms.

All my experiments convince me that bees, capable of laying, are produc din hives that have lost the queen. A great quantity of royal jelly is then prepared for feeding the larvae destined to replace her. Therefore, if fertile workers are produced in this situation alone, it is evident their origin is only in those hives where bees prepare the royal jelly. Towards this circumstance, I bent all my attention. It induced me to suspect that when bees give the royal treatment to certain worms, they either by accident or a particular instinct, the principle of which is unknown to me, drop some particles of royal jelly into cells contiguous to those containing the worms destined for queens. The larva of workers, that have accidentally received portions of so active an aliment, must be more or less affected by it; and their ovaries should acquire a degree of expansion. But this expansion will be imperfect; why? because the royal food has been administered only in small portions, and, besides, the larvæ having lived in cells of the smallest dimensions, their parts cannot extend beyond the ordinary proportions. Thus, the bees produced by them will resemble common workers in size and all the external characteris. tics. Added to that, they will have the faculty of laying some eggs, soldly from the effect of the trilling portion of royal jelly mixed

with their aliment.'

Indeed, it appears from the sequel that the author succeeded in producing fertile workers in the hive, at pleasure.

With regard to the combats of the queens, the massacre of the males, and the reception of a strange queen, M. Huber confirms most of the observa ions of Réaumur, and bears testimony to their superior accuracy, when compared with those of the German and Lusatian writers. Having distinctly ascertained that the queen is oviparous, a circumstance which the French naturalist had left undecided, this ingenious observer jext informs us that no extraordinary aid or attention is required for their exclusion; and that the periods of existence, assigned to the three sorts of bees before they assume their ultimate form, have now been exactly determined.

The

The worm of workers passes three days in the egg, five in the vermicular state, and then the bees close up its cell with a wax covering. The worm now begins spinning its coccoon, in which operation thirty-six hours are consumed. In three days, it changes to a nymph, and passes six days in this form. It is only on the twentieth day of its existence, counting from the moment the egg is laid, that it attains the fly state.

The royal worm also passes three days in the egg, and is five a worm; the bees then close its cell; and it immediately begins spinning the coccoon, which occupies twenty-four hours. The tenth and eleventh day it remains in complete repose, and even sixteen hours of the twelfth. Then the transformation to a nymph takes place, in which state four days and a third are passed. Thus it is not before the sixteenth day that the perfect state of queen is attained.

The male worm passes three days in the egg, six and a half as a worm, and metamorphoses into a fly on the twenty-fourth day after the egg is laid.'

In the course of his examinations, M. Huber discovered that the worms both of workers and males fabricate complete coccoons in their cells; whereas the royal larve, from the figure of their cells, are obliged to leave their covering open behind, and thus permit the first royal nymph that is transformed to attack the rest, and sting them to death, which it never fails to do. That this singular provision in favour of monarchy results from the form of the cells, and not from blind instinct, is obvious from the following simple experiment: when royal worms were put into cylindrical glass cells, or portions of glass tubes resembling common cells, they spun complete coccoons; and when common worms were put into very wide cells, they left the coccoon open.

The author's observations on the formation of swarms mostly coincide with those of Réaumur. The latter had suspected that the old queens sometimes conduct the young swarms; and, from M. Huber's experience, it appears incontestible that the old queen always conducts the first swarm but never quits the hive before depositing eggs in the royal cells, from which other queens will proceed after her departure.' These cells appear to be an object of very particular care to the remaining bees, who prevent the young queens successively hatched from leaving them, unless at an interval of several days between each. It is also worthy of remark that young queens conducting swarms from their native hive are still in a virgin state.

Without greatly exceeding our limits, we cannot enter into the illustration of these important particulars in the history of the bee; neither can we dwell on the extraordinary effects of the royal food and treatment, which invite to new views of

animal economy.-Amputation of the wings was not found to affect the fruitfulness of queens, but a privation of both the antenne produced consequences which could scarcely have been divined.

On the fifth of September, (says the author) I cut both off a queen that laid the eggs of males only, and put her into the hive im mediately after the operation. From this moment there was a great alteration in her conduct. She traversed the combs with extraordinary vivacity. Scarcely had the workers time to separate and recode betote her; she dropped her eggs, without attending to deposit them in any cell. The hive not being very populous, part was without comb. Either she seemed particularly earnest to repair, and 1g remained motionless. She appeared to avoid the bees; however, several workers followed her into this solitude, and treated her with the most evident respect. She seldom required honey from them. but, when that occurred, directed her trunk with an uncertain kind of feeling, sometimes on the head and sometimes on the limbs of the workers, and if it did reach their mouths, it was by chance. Atoler times she returned upon the combs, then quitted them to traver e the glass sides of the hive; and always dropped eggs during her various motions. Sometimes she appeared tormented with the desire of leaving her habitation. She rushed towards the opening, and entered the glass tube adapted there; but the external orifice being too small, after fruitless exertion, she returned Notwithstanding these symp toms of delirium, the bees did not cease to render her the same attention as they ever pay to their queens, but this one received it with indifference.'

In his concluding letter, M. Huber recommends the use of leaf hives, and a moderate participation in the produce of the labours of bees, as the most infallible means of preserving the stock. A certain quantity of honey and wax, he observes, will be best secured by a number of hives, rather than by plund ring a few of a great proportion of their treasures. He is likewise of opinion that more hives may be kept in a country abounding in meadows, and where black grain is cultivated, than in a district of vineyards or corn.

The tranlator has thrown some of the anatomical details into an Appendix; particularly one passage, which states the dis covery of a singular fact in the procreative commerce of these animals. Such discussions, however, are adapted solely to the contemplation of the physiologist. We shall only add that the volume offers to the reader, in a small compass, a considerable quantity of important information; and that the author's conjectures, whenever they occur, are characterized by good sense and modesty.

ART.