fons would not hesitate, to declare him deprived of all regal authority; but old prejudices are not to eafily given up; thefe ideas of monarchical government have remained; not being able to make a king of this bee, they have made it a queen; and thus, this empire, which had been governed, for to many ages, by an uninterrupted fucceflion of kings, has at last had the misfortune, to fall irretrievably under the diftaff. After this difafter, I am afraid, that the monarchy of bees is haftening to its period, and that foon, when the royal authority fhall have declined, the queen will be confidered merely as a mother, her fubjects, merely as a free people, and this well governed ftate, as nothing but a hive of bees and drones, which, conftrained by inftinct, attach them.felves to one, two, or three females, according to the number of the fwarm, for the prefervation of their fpecies; and who labour in concert, each according to its destination, fome to generate their like, and to bring them into the world, others to preferve them. This, at leaft, is the state, to which the celebrated Swammerdam reduces them, who ftudied them, with great application, and has treated largely on the fubject, in his Biblia Naturæ. There is reason to believe, that he thinks juftly in this cafe.

I muft obferve, that it does not appear, by the paffages which the author refers to from Ariftotle, that this ancient philofopher knew, that what is commonly called the queen bee, was a female: the generative faculty, which he attri butes to her, is no proof of this, as it depends, as much on the male, as on the female. Befides, he always gives her the name of king, and not of queen, which he probably would not have done, had he known that she was the mother of the bees.

PAGE 132, 1. 7.

They expell the drones. There are three forts of bees in a hive; the mother-bee, the drones, which are the males, and the common or working bees, which are of no sex. It has not been hitherto afcertained, that I know of, if the drones couple with the mother-bee, or whether they merely depofite their femen on the eggs fhe has laid. Swammerdam was inclined to think, that they render her fertile, by the mere odour of their femen, which is by no means probable. At any rate, thefe drones, after having been well fed, without having wrought any, during a confiderable part of the

fpring and fummer, become, towards the end of the feafon, objects of perfecution to the common bees, which purfue and kill, even those which have not undergone their transformations, and which are still in the ftate of worm or nymph. It is believed, with fome probability, that the reafon of fo extraordinary a change in their behaviour, is, that the mother bee, ceafing then to lay eggs, till the following fpring, the drones become ufelefs, and the common bees difpatch them, to fave their provision of honey.

PAGE 133, 1. 14.

The refpect they show their dead. It is much more natural to believe, that the bees do not carry their dead out of the hives, for any other reafon, than to be rid of the putrid fmell which the carcafes would occafion; and it is probably, likewife for the fame reason, that they cover with wax those animals which die in their hives, and which are too large to be removed.

PAGE 134, 1. 21.

The art of fixing it. This art is not difficult, when the object is merely to fix the threads to places within the fpider's reach. But, how does it contrive to fix them on places, which one would think it could not eafily come at? How, for inftance, does it fix them to the top of two large trees, whose branches do not touch? or to two bodies, feparated by a rivulet? This queftion would perhaps embarrass a philofopher, but it is by no means difficult to a fpider: in this cafe, it has recourse to a very fimple and natural expedient. It fufpends itself to the end of a thread, and draws with its feet, from the extremity of its abdomen, several long threads, which it allows to be carried away by the wind; these threads which are ftill connected with its trunk, adhere to the bodies they meet with; and thus, having encountered another tree, or the other bank of a rivulet, they ferve for a bridge to the fpider, in order to transport itself, and to fix the thread to which it was fufpended.

PAGE 134, 1. 27.

In the catching of other infects. This is not the only use which fpiders make of their webs. I have already faid, that they make coques of them round their eggs. But a much more fingular ufe, which fome forts of fpiders turn them

to

to, is, that they make a fort of carriages of them, in which they make long journies, and tranfport themfelves from one region to another. We often fee, when the sky is clear, at certain feasons of the year, quantities of grofs filaments, and pieces of the webs of those infects: if these are examined, we will always find fpiders in them, which have contrived this method of flying without wings, and of tranf porting themfelves eafily to another climate.

PAGE 139, 1. left.

Defitute of all fenfes but feeling. The author certainly does not recollect, that as all infects eat, at least during a certain period of their existence, and that as they do not eat, indifferently, every fort of food, but attach themfelves folely to a particular kind, it is evident, they must all have the fense of tafte, to discern what is fit for their purpose.

PAGE 140, l. 16,

I know none that have ears. It cannot be doubted, that those infects, on which Nature hath bestowed a kind of voice, or to speak more properly, the faculty of forming certain founds, as the crickets, the grafshoppers, fome beetles, &c. must also have received the fenfe of hearing, to perceive those founds, We do not obferve in them, it is true, any external ear; but we cannot infer, for that reason, that they have none. They may be difguifed and rendered obfcure, by their form and fituation, Animals, whofe voice is not produced by the throat, whofe refpiration is performed through the thorax, the fides, or the abdomen, fome of which have their eyes on the back, and the genital organs at the head, animals of this kind, may well have the ears in a place, where we would leaft expect to find them. The ufes of all the parts in infects, are not known to us; perhaps, there may be among those we are ignorant of, fome which are given to them for the purpose of receiving the impreffion of founds. Still lefs can we fay, that infects have no internal ear. This organ, if they poffefs it, muft in them be fo fmall and delicate, that though it were before our eyes, we might even find it impoffible to difcern it.We are not, therefore, fo well acquainted with the anatomy of infects, as to take upon us to affert, that they are deprived of the organ of hearing, and still lefs ought we to maintain, that they hear, without being poffeffed of that or

gan.

3 G

* The

*The late Profeffor Fabricius difcovered the ears of infects. He published an account, with figures of those organs in the crab and lobster, in the New Copenhagen Tranfactions, Vol. II. p. 375. This eminent entomologist found the external orifice of the organ in these animals, to be placed between the long and fhort antennæ; the cochlea, &c. being lodged in the upper part of what Linnæus calls the thorax; near the base of the serrated projection at its apex. PAGE 141, 1. 18.

Their trunk and their palpi. If the palpi of infects be the organ of any fenfe known to us, we would rather fuppofe them to be the organ of finell, than of taste. Without, however, attempting to decide on this point, I fhall only remark, that it seems to be by their means, that infects diftinguifh the quality of their food. Thofe which have these parts, never fail, before they begin to eat any thing, to feel it, as it were with their palpi, and if the fubftance does not please them, they abandon it, without touching it with their teeth, a circumftance, which pretty clearly proves, that, by the mere application of those palpi, they are able to know, what forts of food are useful, and what improper for them.

PAGE 141, . 31.

Some prefer the blood of man, others of quadrupeds. There are even fome, whofe delicacy goes ftill farther, and which will not touch the blood of certain perfons, while they continually attack that of others. This is known to be the cafe with gnats and fleas. As to the last, it cannot be said, that the skin of certain perfons is too hard for them to penetrate, fince they are able to pierce the fkin of quadrupeds, which is certainly much stronger.

PAGE 145, 1. 14.

Some change their skin four times a year. As the author is fpeaking in this place, of caterpillars, before they change into butterflies, &c. it is proper to obferve, that his expreffion is not very accurate, when he fays, they change their fkin four times in a year. From this, one might be led to infer, that they live more than a year, although it be a general rule, and one, to which I have hitherto found only a single exception, that all caterpillars finish that ftage of their exiftence, in less than a year; there are even fome that accomplifh it, in lefs than a month. He would, therefore, have expreffed

expreffed himself better, had he said, fimply, that they change their skin four times; but that, however, would not have been a general cafe, for I have already said, elsewhere, that I have known fome caterpillars change their skin, feven, and even nine times, before entering into the chryfalis ftate.

PAGE 146, 1. 6.

Others have the head very large. The proportion between the head and the body, is not always the fame, in the fame infect; in thofe that have it horny, it is fmall, when they are about to change their skin, and increafes in fize, every time the change is made. The reason is evident; the horny fhell prevents it from growing, while the body increases in bulk, and thus its fize, in proportion to the body, continually diminishes. When infects prepare to divest themfelves of their fkin, the fubftance of the head, in a great number of them, retires within the neck, and into the first articulation there, having generally no hard or horny matter to confine it, it extends and enlarges, and when the animal has quitted its old fkin, we are furprised to see it with a head twice as large as it had before. And, as the infect neither eats nor grows while its head is forming, we may obferve this fingularity with regard to it, that the body and the head have alternately their turn for enlarging; that, while the body does not increase, the head grows, and that, when the head does not grow, the body grows.

PAGE 146, l. 12.

It is not eafy to discover the head in fome infects. There are even fome fpecies, that can draw the head entirely within the body, fo that no part whatever of it appears: fuch are those larvæ which change into flies, and alfo, fnails and flugs. It is fingular, that in these insects, the head has no determinate shape, and in this particular, they differ from all other animals.

PAGE 146, 1. 18.

Winged infects, which have feet. All winged infects, hitherto difcovered, have feet, without exception.

PAGE 146, 1. 30.

Ichneumons, that Ired in the body of the caterpillar with feventy-two folds. Ichneumons cannot be properly difcrimi3 C 2

nated