[9] It was a female sheep, but by the sailors was constantly called Jack.
[10] Reaumur plausibly supposes, that it has been from observing this bee thus loaded, that the tale mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny, of the hive-bee’s ballasting itself with a bit of stone, previous to flying home in a high wind, has arisen.
[11] M. Huber observes, that fecundated females, after they have lost their wings, make themselves a subterranean cell, some singly, others in common. From which it appears that some colonies have more than one female from their first establishment.
[12] See Fourcroy, Annales du Muséum, No. 5, p. 338, 342. Some, however, still regard it as a distinct acid.
[13] See Fourcroy, Annales du Muséum, No. 5. p. 343.
[14] One would think the writer of the account of ants, in Mouffet, had been witness to something similar. “If they see any one idle,” (says he,) “they not only drive him as spurious, without food, from the nest; but likewise, a circle of all ranks being assembled, cut off his head before the gates, that he may be a warning to their children, not to give themselves up for the future to idleness and effeminacy.”—Theatr. Ins. p. 241.
[15] Annal. di Chimica, xiii. 1797, Mag. ii. 80.
“And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glowworm’s eyes.”
[17] Hist. Nat. l. xi. c. 29. A similar law was enacted in Lemnos, by which every one was compelled to bring a certain measure of locusts annually to the magistrates. Plin.