Volume 1
Alle de brieven van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek / uitgegeven, geïllustreerd en van aanteekeningen voorzien door een Commissie van Nederlandsche geleerden.
- Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
- Date:
- 1939-
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Alle de brieven van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek / uitgegeven, geïllustreerd en van aanteekeningen voorzien door een Commissie van Nederlandsche geleerden. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![2. The Sting of a Bee I find to be of another make than it hath Stin9 °f a Bee- been described by others3). For I have observed in it two other stings, that are lodged within the thickness of the first sting, each having its peculiar sheath. 3. Further I observe, on the Head of a Bee before, two artus Head °t a Bee. or limbs with teeth, which I call Scrapers4), conceiving them to be the organs wherewith the Bee scrapes the Waxy substance from the Plant. Besides, I find two other limbs, each having two Joints, which I call Arms, wherewith I believe this Insect performs its work and maketh the Combs. Moreover, there is also a little Body, which I, call the Wiper, being rough and exceeding the other Limbs in thickness and length, by which I am apt to believe the Bee wipes the Hony-substance from the Plant. All which five Limbs the Bee, when she doth not work, knows curiously to lay by close under her head, in very good order. 4. As to the Eye of the Bee, which I have taken out of the Eye of a Bee. Head, exposing its innermost part to the Microscope; I find, that the Bee receives her light just with the same shadow as we see the Hony-combs: Whence I am prone to collect, that the Bee works not by art or knowledge, but only after the pattern of the light received in the Eye5). 5. In a Lowse I observe indeed, as others6) have done, a Louse. 3) Cf. note 4 to the letter of Aug. 15th 1673. [S.] 4) It is evident from the letter of June 16th 1700 that L’s “scrapers” are the upper mandibles and the “arms” the feelers or palpi, and that the “wiper” is the tongue or lingula. The remark that the “arms” serve to make the honeycomb is incorrect. L. groped in the dark concerning the origin of wax, just like Swammerdam. Perhaps he also meant the propolis. [S.] 6) Struck by the resemblance between the faceted eyes of insects and the structure of a honeycomb, L. evidently thinks that a bee’s visual field is divided into hexagons and that this instigates it to give its particular form to the honeycomb. Cf. the letter of June 16th, 1700. [H.] 6) Lice were microscopically studied by F. Redi before L. did so (Esperienze intorno alia generazione degli insetti. Firenze 1668). In all probability there is a reference here to R. Hooke, who pictures the louse with antennae consisting of four articulations and also describes them (Micro- graphia 1665. Obs. 54). It is quite possible that Hooke saw an intermediate stage between the larva with three articulations and the fullgrown louse with five. By “horns”, a few lines lower down, Leeuwenhoeck means the feelers or antennae. As a matter of fact these have five articulations in the case of Pediculus. Swammerdam, who says that the “little horns consist of five articulations” was aware of this (Biblia Naturae (1737), p. 68). In his Historia generalis insectorum ofte Algemeene verhandeling van de bloedeloose dierkens (Utrecht, 1669) Swammerdam had not yet observed this. [S.] 3](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31364962_0001_0039.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
