"Well might the Bard, on fancy's frolic wing, Bid, from fresh flowers, enascent myriads spring, Raise genial ferment in the slaughter'd steer. And people thence his insect-teeming year; A fabled race, whom no soft passions move. The smile of duty nor the glance of love." +Evans.+ "To vindicate, in some measure, the character of the insect queen, Mr. Wildman boldly dared to stem the torrent, and revive the long forgotten idea suggested by Mr. Butler in his _Feminine Monarchy_, that queens produce queens only, and that the common bees are the mothers of common bees." But all these fanciful notions must yield to the clear and decisive experiments of Huber, who has satisfactorily shown that _the queen is the general mother of all_; he has also resolved the causes of former mistaken opinions. Many apiarians have found a difficulty in admitting the theory of Huber, in consequence of the very great disproportion in the number of the sexes, there being only one female to several hundred males, and one impregnation being, in his opinion, all that is required to fertilize myriads of eggs. The number of drones may be considered as in accordance, in some degree, with the general profusion of nature: we find her abounding with supernumeraries in a great variety of instances, in the blossoms of trees and flowers, as well as in the relative number of one sex to the other among animals. Huber conceives that it was necessary there should be a great number of drones, that the queen might be sure of finding one, in her excursion through the expanse of the atmosphere, and run no risk of sterility. In page 26 I have stated the opinion of Mr. Dobbs, that a queen has intercourse with several drones; and what I have also stated upon the authority of Mr. Hunter, in page 34, with respect to the silk-moth and other insects, gives countenance to that opinion: nor do I see its inconsistency with the discovery made by Huber. Though there is reason to believe that the act proves fatal to one devoted drone, yet those that are so fortunate as to obtain the first favours of her majesty, may escape uninjured. If the conjecture which I have thus hazarded be correct, it will appear less surprising that so many drones should be brought into existence.