of the moon, carrying further the studies of the day, and reading romances. He did not take very good care of himself, it is to be feared; for his health, and with it his sight, began to give way when he was about fifteen. It looked as if he were about to become blind, and his father took him to Paris to consult a famous oculist. This physician sent him into the country, away from books and college friends, to lead the life of a peasant upon a farm. He lived with the plain people about him, following the plough all day, and sleeping all night, instead of wasting candles and moonlight. His health returned, and he went back to Geneva, in love with the country, and with his head full of many things that he had noticed as he worked in the fields.

But his eyes grew dimmer, and it became certain that he must be soon totally blind. Before they closed, however, he had seen the face of a young girl, Marie Lullin, whom he was to see but a short time longer, but who was to live faithfully with him for forty years. Her father was very angry that a young man about to be totally blind should offer to marry his daughter, who had two eyes, and was to have a large fortune, and refused his consent to the marriage. Huber, in despair, used all the remain

ing light in his eyes to get such a vivid knowledge of things about him as should last him when he could no longer see. He looked at everything closely, and putting together what he saw with what he remembered, and what he imagined he saw, he was able to present such a picture to himself as sometimes even deceived him into believing that he saw every particle of it, just as we think we recollect a good many things that happened to us when children, because they have been told us over and over. At any rate, he used his knowledge and sight so discreetly, that it was very hard for other people to suppose him nearly blind; and this was exactly what he wished, for it was his probable helplessness which made Marie's father refuse him his daughter. But Lullin was not won over by this course, and steadily kept to his refusal. Marie, however, remained faithful; and when, seven years after, at twenty-five, the law allowed her freedom, she married Huber, and thenceforth was inseparable from him, reading to him, writing for him, and, most of all, observing for him.

For this was the wonderful fact about Huber, that having no eyes, he used the eyes of those about him in such a way, that he was able to make discoveries which astonished the scien

tific world, and have never been proved false. He had his wife, he had also a sagacious and devoted servant, named Francis Burnens, and finally his son Pierre grew up to observe for him, and to become himself famous for his study of ants. Huber's life in the country had made him fond cf Natural History, and his interest had been increased by reading; moreover, he had a neighbor named Charles Bonnet, who had some reputation as a scientific man, and came to talk with him.

In his darkness, therefore, for he had now become totally blind, he began to remember certain facts about bees, which he had noticed, and wished to explain them. For this it was necessary to watch them, and he set Francis Burnens to work, telling him what to look at and to look for. He asked him questions in such a way that the quick-witted servant learned what to notice, and daily reported his observations. Huber's mind became intensely occupied with this subject. He asked his wife and his neighbors what they saw, and if they saw thus and thus. In this way he was getting. the observations of a number of people, who all saw independently of each other; and Huber once said, smiling, to a brother naturalist, "I am much more certain of what I state

than you are; for you publish what your own eyes only have seen, while I take the mean among many witnesses."

In his darkness, Huber's mind took hold of the facts presented to it, and turned them about, put them together, made one explain another; and, in a word, constructed whole facts out of the bits and fragments which different people brought to him. "He discovered," for instance, says one of his friends, "that the nuptials, so mysterious and so remarkably fruitful, of the queen bee, the only mother of the tribe, never take place in the hive, but always in the open air, and at such an elevation as to escape ordinary observation, but not the intelligence of a blind man, aided by a peasant. He confirmed, by multiplied observations, the discovery of Schirach, until then disputed, that bees can transform, at pleasure, the eggs of working bees into queens by appropriate food. He described with much care the combats of queen bees with each other, the massacre of drones, and all the singular occurrences which take place in a hive when a strange queen is introduced as a substitute for the natural queen. He showed the influence which the dimensions of the cells exert upon the shape of the insects which pro

ceed from them; he related the manner by which the larvæ spin the silk of their cocoons; he studied the origin of swarms, and was the first who gave a rational and accurate history of those flying colonies." This, and very

much more, is recited as the discovery of Huber.

Now who saw all this, Francis Burnens or Francis Huber? Bees had been seen by peasants ever since the world began, and yet Huber, who had no eyes, was the first really to see them. Burnens was indefatigable in following his master's directions, but he could not put his facts together as Huber did. Just so our eyes may rest upon everything about us, but behind the eye is the mind, that sits like Huber all alone, and directs the eye what to look at and report to it; and it is just as the mind directs and the eye obeys, that we find out things, discover, that is, take off the cover and see what is underneath. That habit which Huber formed when he was growing blind, of putting together what he heard and what he remembered and also saw very imperfectly, was a capital preparation for his scientific studies afterwards, and made it more possible for him to put Burnens' facts into just their right places. Burnens brought him this