that they may thus be exposed to the mortal sting of the first-hatched queen, whose instinct leads her instantly to seek the destruction of those that would soon become her rivals; and he calls upon us to admire the providence of Nature, in thus exposing the royal larvæ to fatal danger. p. 159

In the close of the letter, we have an account of an experiment instituted to determine the influence which the size of the cells might have on the size of the bees produced in them. All the larva were removed from a comb of drones' cells, and the larvæ of workers substituted in their place. The bees, it may be remarked, immediately showed that they were aware of the change which had been effected; for they did not close the cells with the convex covering always placed over the males, but gave them quite a flat top. The result proved that the size of the cells does not materially influence the size of the bees; or, at least. that although a small cell may cramp the size of a worker, yet, that workers bred in large cells do not exceed the ordinary

bulk.

In letters ninth, tenth, and eleventh, the author treats of the formation of swarms. But in the first place, he gives an interesting account of the hatching of the queen bee. When the pupa is about to change into the perfect insect, the bees render the cover of the cell thinner by gnawing away part of the wax; and with so much nicety do they perform this operation, that the cover at last becomes pellucid, owing to its extreme thinness. This must not only facilitate the exit of the fly, but, M. Huber remarks, it may possibly be useful in permitting the evaporation of the superabundant fluids of the nymph. After the transformation is complete, the young queens would, in common course, immediately emerge from their cells, as workers and drones do; but the bees always keep them prisoners for some days in their cells, supplying them in the mean time with honey for food; a small hole being made in the door of each cell, through which the confined bee extends its proboscis to receive it. The royal prisoners continually utter a kind of song, the modulations of which are said to vary. The final cause of this temporary imprisonment, it is suggested, may possibly be, that they may be able to take flight, at the instant they are liberated. When a young queen does at last get out, she meets with rather an awkward reception. She is pulled, bit, and chased, as often as she happens to approach the other royal cells in the hive. The purpose of nature here seems to be, that she should be impelled to go off with a swarm as soon as possible. A curious fact was observed on these occasions. When the queen found herself much harassed, she had only to utter a peculiar noise (the commanding voice, we may presume, of sovereignty) and all the bees were instantaneously constrained to submission and obedience. This is, indeed, one of the most marked instances in which the queen exerts her sovereign power. It seems entirely to have escaped the notice of Mr. Bonner, who declares that he never could observe in the queen any thing like an exertion of sovereignty.*

The conclusions at which M. Huber arrives on the subject of swarms, are the following.

lat, "A swarm is always led off by a single queen, either the sovereign of the parent hive, or one recently brought into existence. If, at the return of spring, we examine a hive well peopled, and governed by a fertile queen, we shall see her lay a prodigious number of male eggs in the course of May, and the workers will choose that moment for constructing several royal cells." p. 202. This laying of male eggs in May, M. Huber calls the great

* Bonner on Bees, p. 52.

laying; and he remarks, that no queen ever has a great laying till she be eleven months old. It is only after finishing this laying, that she is able to undertake the journey implied in leading a swarm; for, previously to this, "latum trahit alvum," which unfits her for flying. There appears to be a secret relation between the production of male eggs and the construction of royal cells. The great laying commonly lasts thirty days and regularly on the twentieth or twenty-first, several royal cells are founded.

2dly, "When the larva hatched from the eggs laid by the queen in the royal cells are ready to transform to nymphs, this queen leaves the hive, conducting a swarm along with her; and the first swarm that proceeds from the hive is uniformly conducted by the old queen." p. 205. M. Huber remarks, that it was necessary that instinct should impel the old queen to lead forth the first swarm; for that she being the strongest, would never have failed to have overthrown the younger competitors for the throne. An old queen, as has been already said, never quits a hive at the head of a swarm, till she have finished her laying of male eggs; but this is of importance, not merely that she may be lighter and fitter for flight, but that she may be ready to begin with the laying of workers' eggs in her new habitation, workers being the bees first needed in order to secure the continuance and prosperity of the newly founded commonwealth.

Sdly, "After the old queen has conducted the first swarm from the hive, the remaining bees take particular care of the royal cells, and prevent the young queens successively hatched, from leaving them, unless at an interval of several days between each." p. 207. Under this head, he introduces a number of general remarks, some of which may prove useful. "A swarm, he observes, is never seen, unless in a fine day; or, to speak more correctly, at a time of the day when the sun shines, and the air is calm. Sometimes we have observed all the precursors of swarming, disorder and agitation; but a cloud passed before the sun, and tranquillity was restored; the bees thought no more of swarming. An hour afterwards, the sun having again appeared, the tumult was renewed; it rapidly augmented; and the swarm departed." p. 211. A certain degree of tumult commences as soon as the young queens are hatched, and begin to traverse the hive. The agitation soon pervades the whole bees; and such a ferment then rages, that M. Huber has often observed the thermometer in the hive rise suddenly from about 92o to above 104°. This suffocating heat he considers as one of the means employed by nature for urging the bees to go off in swarms. In warm weather, one strong hive has been known to send off four swarms in eighteen days.

4thly, "The young queens conducting swarms from their native hive, are still in a virgin state." p. 221. The day after being settled in their new abode, they generally set out in quest of the males, and this is usually the fifth day of their existence as queens. Old queens conducting the first swarms require no renewal of their intercourse with the male, a single interview being sufficient to fecundate all the eggs that a queen will lay for at least two years. This is considered by Mr. Bonner as quite an incredible circumstance; insomuch that he remarks, either in a sarcastick, or in a very innocent style, that if a queen bee "should continue for seven or eight months with about 12,000 impregnated eggs in her ovarium, it certainly would make her appear very large !"* The worthy bee master seems to have fancied that an egg could not be fecundated till it were of the full size, and ready for exclusion. It is a fact, however, ascertained beyond contro

versy by M. Huber, that "a single copulation is sufficient to impregnate the whole eggs that a queen will lay in the course of at least two years. I have even reason to think, he adds, that a single copulation will impregnate all the eggs that she will lay during her whole life; but I want absolute proof for more than two years." p. 54.

Towards the close of the eleventh letter, we have some remarks on the wonderful instincts of bees; and in hazarding these, M. Huber is duly cau tious. He resolves all into what Shakspeare calls a ruling nature ;" and disapproves both of Réaumeur for ascribing wisdom and foresight to them, and of Buffon for considering them as mere automata. We do not imagine he would be at all more indulgent to our learned countryman Mr. Knight, who, in a late paper on the economy of bees,* has intimated his belief that they can hold consultations, and communicate different kinds of intelligence to each other. "If their language," he goes the length of saying, "be not in some degree a language of ideas, it appears to be something very similar.” In the twelfth letter, we find additional observations on queens that lay only the eggs of drones, or whose fecundation has been retarded. The instinct of such queens seems to be impaired. They show no antipathy to royal cells, but pass quietly over them without indicating any emotion; while other queens exhibit the greatest enmity against those of their own sex that are in the nymphine state. Some observations are added on the effects produced by mutilating the bodies of queens. Swammerdam had asserted, that if the wings of queens be cut, they are rendered sterile. This appeared rather strange and improbable. M. Huber accordingly found, that the cutting of the wings of impregnated queens produced no effect on them; and he concludes, certainly with great probability, that Swammerdam had cut the wings of virgin queens, who had not therefore been able to seek the males in the air, and so remained barren. The amputation of one antenna, M. Huber found, had no bad effect on a queen; but when deprived of both, she was much deranged. She dropped her eggs at random; and when the bees fed her, she often missed her aim in attempting to catch hold of the morsel they presented to her. M. Huber placed two queens deprived of the antennæ in the same hive. The loss of their feelers seemed to have put an end to their natural animosity. They passed and repassed each other, without taking the least notice. Both of them constantly endeavoured to leave the hive. M. Huber declares, that he cannot say whether the antennæ be the organs of touch or smell; but he suggests that they may possibly fulfil both functions at once. It seems fully as probable that they are the instruments of a peculiar sense, of the nature of which we have no conception, and for which, consequently, we have no name.

In the thirteenth and last letter, we have several useful observations on the economical treatment of bees. It has already been hinted, that M. Huber's leaf-hive might be employed with advantage by practical men. It is well calculated, for example, for producing artificial swarms, on the principle of Schirach's discovery. In the leaf-hive we can see whether the population is sufficient to admit of division,-if the brood is of proper age,— if males exist or are ready to be produced for impregnating the young queen." By means of it, also, bees may be induced to work much more in wax than they would naturally do. "Here, says M. Huber, I am led to what I believe is a new observation. While naturalists have directed our admiration to the parallel position of the combs, they have overlooked another trait in the industry of bees, namely, the equal distance uniformly be

• Phil. Trans. 1807, part ii.

tween them. On measuring the interval separating the combs, it will generally be found about four lines. Were they too distant, it is very evident the bees would be much dispersed, and unable to communicate their heat reciprocally; whence the brood would not be exposed to sufficient warroth. Were the combs too close, on the contrary, the bees could not freely traverse the intervals, and the work of the hive would suffer." p 263. This instinct being admitted, it is evident that bees may he induced to construct new combs, by merely separating those already built, so far asunder, that they may have room to build others in the interval.

The cause of the bees, which has been so eloquently and pathetically pleaded by the poet of the Seasons, is supported by M. Huber on a principle more intelligible, perhaps, and more persuasive, to most country bee masters, viz. interest. He deprecates the destruction of bees, and recommends to the cultivator to be content with a reasonable share of the wealth of the hive; arguing, very justly we believe, that a little taken from each of a number of hives, is ultimately much more profitable, than a greater quantity obtained by the total destruction of a few.

M. Huber, in the conclusion, promises to give to the publick a separatë work on the economical management of bees. This has not yet been published; but the experience and sagacity of the author lead us to anticipate in it, the most useful, practical book that has ever appeared on the subject. We may observe, however, that to the edition printed at Paris in 1796 is subjoined a " Manuel-pratique de la Culture des Abeilles," by a Frenchman. This little tract contains, in our opinion, a good deal of useful information, exhibiting the most recent and improved plans adopted in France. A translation of it, we conceive, would have been a valuable addition to the work now before us.

Upon the whole, M. Huber's treatise is both an entertaining and an instructive little volume. Throughout the performance, however, a want of arrangement is conspicuous; and in this respect the original is still more faulty than the translation; for the translator has, with propriety, removed to an appendix some minute anatomical details, which interrupt and darken the narrative; and has, on the other hand, engrossed in the text some inportant and closely connected passages which are improperly thrown into foot notes in the original.

The author mentions in his preface, that he had long been deprived of sight, and was obliged to depend on an assistant in making his experiments. We should not wonder if the reader should agree with us in being at first somewhat mortified at this intelligence, and should wish that the author had seen every thing with his own eyes. We should really be surprised if he did not smile with us at finding this untoward looking circumstance actually considered as an advantage by the translator; for, after mentioning the cir cumstance, the translator, in his preface, immediately adds: “Thus these discoveries may be said to acquire double authority! Now, it seems pretty evident, that though a naturalist's assistant may possess a pair of very good eyes, he may yet be quite inadequate to the task of intelligibly describing what he sees. M. Huber, however, fortunately enjoyed in Francis Burners, a philosophick assistant, who himself appears to have entered with enblausiasm into the pursuit, and to have conducted the experiments, not only with the most patient assiduity, watching every occurence oculis niceizüïs, but with great address, and no small share of steadiness and cowegsqualities indispensable in those who attempt to work among the stinging mations.

In respect to the translation, it is anonymous; but bears intrinsick marks of Scottish extraction. In his preface, the translator observes: "It is vain to attempt a translation of any work without being, to a certain degree, skilled in the subject of which it treats. Some parts of the original of the following treatise, it must be acknowledged, are confused, and some_so minute, that it is extremely difficult to give an exact interpretation. But the general tenour, though not elegant, is plain and perspicuous; and such has it been here retained." We should be sorry to detract from this modest claim. The translation is certainly always plain, and it is generally perspicuous. The extracts we have given may be considered as affording a fair specimen of the whole. We must not conceal, however, that in some few instances, it is careless and faulty. The sense is entirely mistaken at page 112; and at page 23 inextricable confusion s produced by his choosing to render," reigning queens" by the extraordinary phrase of "virgin females." Upon the whole, however, the translation is better than that of most French books.

As Mr. Bonner's treatise is pretty well known, and his opinions generally circulated, especially in Scotland, we have thought it not amiss, in the course of the preceding analysis, to state the chief points in which M. Huber differs from him; and we confess that it has appeared to us that in these cases our countryman generally stands corrected by the Genevese observer. They appear both to have been engaged in making their experiments and observations about the same time, from 1788 to 1791. M. Huber, however, possessed several eminent advantages. He was directed in his researches by one of the first philosophers of the day, M. Bonnet. He was not restrained in his experiments by any considerations of time or expense; and he was aided by an assistant peculiarly expert in working among bees. Our Bonner, on the other hand, was so much restricted, both as to expense and time, having a family to support by his daily earnings at the loom; and he long laboured under a very peculiar and almost incredible disadvantage, that of residing in the midst of a populous city; for we understand it to be a fact, that his apiary was for some years kept in a garret in Glasgow.

The practical directions contained in Mr. Bonner's book, are, we have no doubt, in general excellent; but many of them are of partial application only, being peculiarly adapted to the climate of North Britain; and it must not be concealed, that this climate is unfavourable to the cultivation of bees. In this respect, it is inferiour, not only to the climate of France or Italy, but even to that of Denmark or Russia; for in these last countries, the bees remain, during the whole winter, in a state approaching to torpor, and never leave their hives till the frost has fairly broken up, when, as is well known, the genial season immediately commences, and continues steady for several months. With us, on the contrary, the great changeableness of the weather in the months of March, April, and May, opposes an almost insurmountable obstacle to that extensive culture of those insects, so enthusiastically projected by the worthy bee master; and if we be not misinformed, the issue of some pretty extensive trials made by the author himself, under the patronage of the indefatigable president of the Board of Agriculture (sir John Sinclair) has not much tended to encourage those high expectations.