Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy. Inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc / by John Hunter ... With notes by Richard Owen.
- John Hunter
- Date:
- 1840
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy. Inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc / by John Hunter ... With notes by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![the savage to the most civilized people; but it has hardly been considered by the anatomist, at least the two modes of investiga- tion have not gone so muck hand in hand as they ought to have ~ done. The history of the bee has rather been considered as a fit subject for the curious at large, whence more has been conceived than observed. Swammerdam, indeed, has rather erred on the other side, having with great industry been very minute on the particular structure of the bee. I shall here observe that it is commonly not only unnecessary to be minute in our description of parts in natural history, but in general improper. It is unnecessary when it does not apply to anything but the thing itself, more especially if it be of no consequence ; but whenever it applies, then it should so far be treated accurately. Minutie beyond what is essential, tire the mind, and render that which should entertain along with instruc- tion heavy and disagreeable; the more so too if the parts are small, where the sense can only take them in singly, and the mind ean hardly comprehend the whole or apply all the parts combined to any consequent action. This has been too much the case with Swammerdam; he often attempted too much accuracy in his de- scription of minute thing.* But the natural history of insects has not been sufficiently understood at large, so as to throw light on this subject where there was an analogy, and where without such analogy, it must appear in the bee alone unintelligible, from the obscurity attending some parts of their ceconomy; for there is hardly any species of animals but what has some part of its ceconomy obscure, and probably this is as much so in this insect as in any other class of animals we are at one season of the year almost daily seeing; yet these parts of the ceconomy may be evi- dent in some other species of the same tribe or genus, and thus be cleared up, from analogy, so that the species assist each other in their demonstration. This is evident in the whole tribe of flying * insects, for what is lost or cannot be made out in the one may be demonstrated in another ; and we find there are some things in the ceconomy of the bee that cannot be seen or demonstrated in it alone, but which are evident in some other insects ; and while they possess the same parts, and other circumstances are similar, we must conclude the uses of those parts are similar in both; for when- ever a circumstance in one animal cannot be found out in that animal, but can in another, then the natural conclusion is that the uses are similar in both. . Though the bee may be classed in some degree among the * [If the objects of the comparative anatomist were limited to the elucidation of the function of the organs he dissected, there might then, perhaps, be some reason In the animadversions in the text; but his researches have a still higher aim, viz., to trace the general pian which pervades the construction of animals amidst the Various modifications to which each organ is subject in reference to particular functions ; and the study of organic homologies reqnires that attention be paid to the minutest particulars, independently of considerations as to the uses in the economy to which they may be subservient. ]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33292292_0424.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
