£54 on tub ecoxomt or bees. 



ideas they have received from the impression of external 

 objects* They convey to other animals of their species, on 

 the approach of an enemy, a sentiment of danger; but 

 they appear wholly incapable of communicating what the 

 but bees must enemy is, or the kind of danger apprehended. A language 

 communicate Q f more extensive use seems, from the preceding circum- 

 stances, to have been given to bees; and if it be not, in some 

 degree, a language of ideas, it appears to be something very 

 similar. 

 A colony of "When a swarm of bees issues from the parent hive, they 



bees settles generally soon settle on some neighbouring bush or tree ; 

 soon after quit- & . . . . . . . rt . B _ ' , , 



ting the hive. an d as in this situation they are generally not at all defended 



from rain or cold, it is often inferred, that they are less am- 

 ply gifted with those instinctive powers, that direct to self- 



This merely to preservation, than many other animals. JBut their object in 



tr together^" settling soon after they leave the hive is apparently nothing 

 more than to collect their numbers ; and they have gene- 

 rally, I believe always, another place to which they intend 

 subsequently to go : and if the situation they select be not 

 perfectly adapted to secure them from injuries, it is proba-* 

 bly, in almost all instances, the best they can discover, for 



Choose the I have very often observed, that, when one of my hives was 

 est place that near ] v reac jy to swarm, one of the hollow trees I have men- 

 tioned (and generally that best adapted for the accommoda- 

 tion of a swarm) was every day occupied by a small number 



and relinquish of bees ; but that after the swarm had issued from that hive, 



an intended an( j h ac j taken possession of another, the tree was wholly 

 settlement in a , . , r , . „ , , . ,. , ., 



hollow tree, deserted ; whence 1 interred, that the swarm, which would 



when a hive is have taken possession of the cavity of that tree, had relin- 



offered them. .«,... , , , , . ^ i 



quished their intended migration, when a hive was ottered 



This prefei- them at home, And I am much disposed to doubt, whe- 

 ther it be not rather habit, produced by domestication, dur- 

 ing many successive generations, than any thing inherent 

 in the nature of bees, which induces them to accept a hive, 

 when offered them, in preference to the situation they hjave 

 previously chosen : for I have noticed the disposition to mi- 

 grate to exist in a much greater degree in some families of 

 bees than in others ; and the offspring of domesticated ani- 

 mals inherit, in a very remarkable manner, the acquired 

 habits of their parents. In all animals this is observable : 



but 



ence Arises 

 from-habit. 



