hat they pretend to have done, asserts opposing facts, which he
could no more have seen than they.

There is a close classification in Huber's system, the results of which
give us several ranks among bees,--those of the queen, the drone, the
jelly-maker, the artists in wax, the nurse, the harvester, and a certain
little useless black bee. Adversely to this, Mr. Huish, who would carry
bee-craft back to a pre-Reaumurite period, reverts to the original
observations, and declares there are but three sorts of bee in the
hive,--queen, drone, and worker,--which obviously simplifies matters;
while as for the little black bee, he regards it as existing nowhere but
in the head of its discoverer, so that, if the worthy person had not the
traditional maggot in his brain, he might at least be said to have a bee
in his bonnet. The sociable caterpillars, we are told, work as each one
pleases. John Hunter said that bees did, too; and here Mr. Huish is of
the same opinion,--this or that worker scours the fields or fashions the
cell according to the fancy that may overcome him. Him? That is exactly
the question. Mademoiselle Jurine, following the anatomical researches
of her father, promulgated the discovery that the common bee was a
decided female, with its organs undeveloped. To counterbalance her
statements, M. Epignes published a treatise in which he proved
satisfactorily to himself that the common bee is a decided male. Mr.
Huish insists that the common bee is a decided neuter. Discarding M.
Epignes with a fillip, Mr. Huish stoutly argues, against Mademoiselle
Jurine's theory, that the possession of organs destined to no use is an
incident out of the course of Nature,--to which, even were the statement
quite true, it might be added that the creation of a community of a
thousand males and one female is equally out of the course of Nature.
Mr. Huish insists, that, if these bees were all females, yet forbidden
the functions of their sex, it would be an anomaly; he forgets that the
existence of a neuter is already an anomaly. Allowing that Mr. Huish is
here in the wrong, as seems probable, it involves a slight trouble of
its own; for there would then seem to be need of but two kinds of eggs
in the hive, whereas it is well established that three kinds are
laid,--that of the male, the female, and the worker, or imperfect
female. Huber, however, in such dilemma, adopting the previous hints of
Schirach, at once seized upon Mademoiselle Jurin