Dov. But what would you think of a gentleman I have the pleasure of visiting in the higher ranks, and whose conversation is really a happiness to me, who talks of little young bees?—­and really believes that they grow!  He smiled at me compassionately when I told him that insects never grew when in the perfect state; but, like Minerva from the brain of Jove, issue full-armed with sharpest weapons, and corslets of burnished green, purple, and gold, in panoply complete:  yet is this gentleman a man of genius, wit, and very extensive knowledge.

Von Os. Not in bees.

Dov. He was not aware of the numerous species of British bees; and that several, of a small intrepid sort, will enter the hives, and prey on the treasures of their more industrious congeners.

Von Os. Reasoning from analogy does not do in natural history.

Dov. No; for who, without observation, or the information of others, ever by analogical reasoning could reconcile the enormous difference of size and colour, in the sexes of some of the humble bees?—­or ever discover that in some species there are even females of two sizes?

Von Os. But these never grow.

Dov. Certainly not.  Bees, however, hatched in very old cells, will be somewhat smaller:  as each maggot leaves a skin behind which, though thinner than the finest silk, layer after layer, contracts the cells, and somewhat compresses the future bee.

Von Os. No ignorance is so contemptible as that of what is hourly before our eyes.  I do not so much wonder at the fellow who inquired if America was a very large town, as at him who, finding the froth of the Cicada spumaria L. on almost every blade in his garden, wondered where were all the cuckoos that produced it.

Dov. They call it cuckoo-spit, from its plentiful appearance about the arrival of that bird.

Von Os. That is reasoning from analogy.

Dov. And yet I see not why the bird should be given to spitting; unless, indeed, he came from America.

Von Os. The vulgar, too, not only delight in wonders inexplicable, but have a rabid propensity to pry into futurity.

Dov. I believe that propensity is far from being confined to the vulgar.

Von Os. True; but not in so ridiculous a way:  as they prophesy the future price of wheat from the number of lenticular knobs (containing the sporules) in the bottom of a cup of the fungus Nidularia.

Dov. The weather may be foretold with considerable certainty, for a short time, from many hygrometric plants, and the atmospheric influence on animals.

Von Os. And from Cloudology, by the changing of primary clouds into compound; and these resolving themselves into nimbi, for rain; or gathering into cumuli, for fair weather.  This is like to become a very useful and pleasing science.