no parallel with which I am acquainted, forms a most singular exception to a law of nature that would be otherwise deemed universal.

Nothing respecting this life hath been more carefully concealed from human beings, and all other creatures we know, than the sex of that offspring that is to proceed from them. It is only after the young have made their appearance in life, that this point can possibly be discovered. This circumstance, so carefully concealed from all others, would seem to have been revealed to the bee alone. We have just had occasion to remark, that the working bees take care to provide cells for the reception of the eggs that are destined to proceed from the mother bee; and in every infant hive the providing of these cells is the first business they undertake. As there are three orders of bees, each of which differs in size from the others, and, as the bee carries on all its operations with the most scrupulous exactnefs and economy, in order to enable them to do this they are, it would seem, endowed with the faculty of knowing which egg will produce a female, which a male, and which a labouring bee. These last accordingly take care to provide a proper number of cells, appropriated for the sustentation of the larvæ of each of these classes; and no instance hath ever been observed of a young animal of one class being hatched in the cell appropriated for those of another; the young that are found in the royal cells are invariably females, those in the cells of drones are as invariably males; and none but working bees have ever been discovered in the common cell. As it is universally admitted the eggs are never shifted

from the cells in which they were first deposited, nor the larvæ from that in which they were hatched, it seems to be impossible to deny that the creature which deposited those eggs must have been sensible of the gender of the germ contained in the egg when it was there deposited.

But the wonders which the economy of this insect hath brought under our view are so numerous, that we know not where they will end. The circumstance of the three orders of bees above stated has been known for ages; and of course the attention of philosophical observers hath been strongly directed to the contemplation of its life, generation, and economy. In consequence of this, the literary world was much surprised about forty years ago by the publication of an account of certain discoveries said to have been made by a Mr. Schirach, of the Academy of Lusatia, respecting the nature of these three orders of bees, which, though it does not materially affect the wonderful part of the above hypothesis, modifies it in a certain manner, and serves to shew how small a progrefs man hath yet made in the knowledge of the operations of nature. This worthy clergyman found that, when a parcel of working bees were shut up in a close hive with a piece of honeycomb that contained the cells of working bees only, being thus deprived of their queen, they remained in a state of inactive despondency for some time. But, if there were one or more worms in these cells that had been hatched not more than three or four days, they had it in their power to form a queen for themselves. With this view, when they found no other means of obtaining a queen,

they began to rear a royal cell of the usual form; and, having placed in it the worm they had chosen for that purpose, they fed it with the food appropriated for the royal larvæ (which is very different from that given to those of the working bees), and nursed it in every respect as they would have done the royal worms in a common hive. From the moment they had adopted this measure, as if aware that they would soon be provided with a female to continue the species, they resumed their labours with the usual alacrity, and in due time the worm was changed into a crysalis, and soon ifsued from its cell in the form of a complete and perfect queen bee; being in no respect different from those of that clafs produced in the usual way, and capable of laying eggs and performing every other function of the mother bee.

The procedure is, in this case, so extremely dif- . ferent from any thing that is observed to take place in the usual course of nature, that it gave rise to many speculations among literary men. The fact was strongly controverted; but, after a long contest, the experiments of Mr. Schirach were so fully corroborated by those of Mr. Debraw and others, that it seemed no longer possible to resist the evidence; and the fact is now universally admitted to be precisely as he had originally stated it to be. Thus do we perceive that, as if it were with a view to moderate the pride of man, the Almighty hath been pleased to endow a trifling insect with powers, in some respects, so much beyond those that he hath conferred upon man, and the other nobler animals, as he is pleased

to call them, that they can only contemplate it with

wonder. But what is there in this that is not common with the most ordinary operations of nature? They are all alike inexplicable by us. I will, for example, that I should raise my hand to my head, and I feel that this is instantly done; but I am equally ignorant how mind can operate upon matter, as I am ignorant of the way in which the bee can modify at will the sex of its progeny. It no doubt feels, as we do, that it can do so, and therefore does it; but how it should be endowed with that power, it knows no more than we. No one of the opérations of nature, then, in the eye of reason, deserves to be accounted wonderful more than another; they are all alike above the reach of our finite comprehension. All we can do is to observe a few of the facts that are placed within our reach; nor shall we then fail to perceive the most incontestible proofs of wisdom and beneficence in the hand that directs the whole, if we shall be sufficiently informed as to be able to appreciate them. Other phenomena equally incomcomprehensible remain to be stated.

[To be continued.]

MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE.

To the Editor of Recreations in Agriculture, &c.

Lucubrations of Timothy Hairbrain.

My son Thomas, make money. Make it honestly if you can; but make money.

"BETTER be dead than out of the fashion," is a maxim that, if practice be admitted as a rule for judging, seems to be universally acknowledged as an incontrovertible truth. If so, I have great reason to dread that my present lucubration will be rejected; for it is my intention strongly to recommend a very unfashionable accomplishment, if you will not admit it to rank as a virtue. Strange! you will say, that any person should be so little acquainted with the spirit of the times, as to think of seriously holding up to view, as worthy of imitation, that pitiful antiquated quality so much admired by our great grandmothers under the name of domestic economy; a vulgar phrase which no polite person would suffer to escape their lips, unless it were to turn it into ridicule: and a most excellent subject it is for that purpose.

"There