is a true picture, although somewhat veiled, of that of Huber and his wife.

We have seen blind men excel as poets; some have distinguished themselves as philosophers, and others as arithmeticians; but it was reserved for Huber to become illustrious, in a science requiring the examination of objects so minute, that the most clear sighted observers find a difficulty in distinguishing them. The perusal of the works of Reaumur and Bounet, and the conversations of the latter, directed his curiosity to the study of bees; his constant residence in the country inspired him, first, with the desire of verifying some facts, and afterwards of supplying some deficiencies in the history of these insects. But, for this kind of observation, it was not only necessary that he should have an instrument such as the labours of the optician might supply, but also an intelligent assistant, whom he could instruct in the use of it. At this time, he had a servant in his family, named Francis Burnens, equally remarkable for his sagacity, and for his attachment to his master. Huber drilled him in the art of observing, directed him in his inquiries by questions dexterously proposed, and by means of his own youthful recollections, and the confirmatory testimony of his wife and friends, he corrected the reports of his assistant, and in this way succeeded in acquiring a clear and accurate idea of the most minute facts. "I am much more certain," he said to a friend one day, laughing, "of what I relate than you are yourself, for you publish only what you have seen with your own eyes, whereas 1 take a medium among

the testimony of many." This, indeed, is very plausible reasoning, but will induce no one to quarrel with his eyes.

Huber discovered that the mysterious and remarkably prolific nuptials of the queen bee, the single mother of all her tribe, are celebrated, not in the hive, but in the open air, at an elevation sufficiently great to escape ordinary eyes, but not to elude the researches of a blind man, aided by a peasant; and he described in detail the consequences of the early or late celebration of this aërial hymen. He confirmed, by repeated observation, the discovery of Schirach, at that time disputed; that bees can at their pleasure transform, by an appropriate kind of food, the eggs of working bees to queens, or, to speak more correctly, neuters to females; he showed also how some working bees can lay productive eggs. He described with great care the combats of the queen bees with each other, the massacre of the drones, and all the singular circumstances that take place in the hive, when a foreign queen is substituted for the indigenous one. He showed the influence produced by the size of the cells, on the growth of the insects reared in them, and how the larvae of the bees spin the silk of their cells. Huber proved to demonstration that the queen is oviparous; he studied the origin of swarms, and was the first who gave an accurate history of the flying colonies. He pointed out the use of their antennæ in enabling the bees to distinguish each other; and, finally, from the knowledge he had acquired of their policy,

he drew up good rules for their economical superintendance. For the greater part of these delicate observations, on hitherto unnoticed facts, he was indebted to his invention, under various forms, of glass hives; one description of which he termed ruches en livre or en feuillettes, book or sheet hives, and the other ruches plates, flat hives, which allowed the labours of the community to be witnessed in their minutest details.

These discoveries were greatly facilitated by Burnens, who in his zeal for the discovery of truth, would brave without shrinking the wrath of an entire hive, in order to discover the most insignificant fact, and was even seen to seize an enormous wasp, in spite of the grievous stings of a whole nest of hornets. From this, we may judge of the enthusiasm with which his master (and I use the term here, not in the sense of employer but instructor,) inspired all his agents in the pursuit of truth. The publication of his labours. took place in 1792, in the form of letters to Charles Bonnet, and under the title of "Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles." Naturalists were much struck, not only with the novelty of the facts, detailed in this work, but with their rigorous accuracy, and the extraordinary difficulties which the author had combated so successfully.

The activity of his researches suffered no interruption, either from this first success, which might have satisfied his personal vanity, or from the embarrassing changes occasioned by the revolution, and his

separation from his faithful Burnens. Another assistant was necessary to him, and this office his wife performed for some time. His son Peter, who afterwards acquired considerable celebrity by his history of ants and other insects, next commenced his apprenticeship as observer to his father; and it was principally by his assistance, that Huber made new and laborious researches into the history of bees. These researches form the second volume of the second edition of his work, published in 1814, and partly edited by his son.

The origin of wax was then a disputed point among naturalists, some affirming, but without sufficient proof, that it was formed with the honey; Huber, who had successfully cleared up the origin of the propolis, confirmed this opinion by numerous observations, and in particular, showed, with the assistance of Burnens, how the wax escapes in the shape of flakes between the rings of the abdomen. He devoted himself to laborious researches on the formation of the bee-hive, and followed step by step its wonderful construction, which seems to resolve, by its perfection, the most delicate problems of geometry; he also pointed out the part which each class of bees takes in forming the hive, and followed their labours from the rudiments of the first cell, until the completion of the honey comb. Huber first made known the ravages of the sphinx atropos in the hives which it enters. He even attempted to clear up the history of the senses in bees, and in particular to ascertain the locality of the sense of smell, the ex

istence of which is proved by the whole history of insects, but the seat of which, their structure has not yet enabled us to fix with certainty. He also undertook curious researches on the respiration of bees, and proved, by numerous experiments, that they absorb oxygen like other animals. The question, however, arose, how could the purity of the air be maintained, in a hive plastered with mastic, and closed in all its parts, except at the narrow orifice which serves as the entrance? This problem required all the sagacity of our observer, and he finally arrived at the conclusion, that the bees, by a particular movement of their wings, agitate the air in such a manner as to produce its renovation; after having assured himself of this by direct observations, he further proved it, by means of the experiment of an artificial ventilation. These experiments on respiration required some analysis of the air in bee-hives, and this brought Huber into correspondence with Senebier, who was then occupied with similar researches on vegetables. Among the means that Huber had at first devised, for discovering the nature of the air in bee-hives, was that of producing the germination of various kinds of seeds, in accordance with the notion, that they never germinate in an atmosphere that has not its due quantity of oxygen. This experiment, although inadequate to the end proposed, suggested to the two friends the idea of occupying themselves with inquiries on germination; and the most curious part of this association is the fact, that