the nature of the insect. And indeed the difficulty, we might almost say impossibility of obtaining any thing like ocular evidence on the subject, will readily account for the diversity of opinion that has hitherto prevailed. And we should hope that this difficulty alone, and not any preconceived theory or unreasonable prejudice, is the cause of that determined pertinacity with which the discoveries and conclusions of Huber, on this subject, are still in some instances rejected. That justly celebrated Naturalist, instituted a set of experiments on the subject of the queen's impregnation, the result of which leads to the conclusion that it takes place in the air. For an account of these experiments, we must refer our readers to his Observations, page 18.
Retarded Impregnation.—There is a fact connected with this part of the natural history of the mother bee which involves great difficulties. The fact itself was discovered by Huber, but its cause he was unable to develope, and no succeeding naturalist has been able to free it from the obscurity in which he has left it,—we mean the effects of Retarded Impregnation. These effects are such as we could hardly credit, were not the fact confirmed by numerous experiments. If impregnation be delayed longer than twenty days from the Queen's birth, the consequence is that none but male eggs are laid, even during the whole of the Queen's life. This phenomenon has baffled every attempt to explain its cause. "There are mysteries," observes Feburier, "in the operations of nature, both in reference to the rational and irrational creation,
