ON THE ECONOMY OF BEES. 253 



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ia several instances followed from my garden to the trees : 

 and they were observed to deviate very little from the direct 

 line between the one point and the other; which seems to in- 

 dicate, that those bees, which had formerly acted as purveyors, 

 now became guides. 



Two instances came under my own observation, in which a Swarms admit? 

 swarm was received into a cavity, of which another swarm in^hoUows 

 had previous possession. In the tirst instance I arrived with already occu- 

 the swarm, and I could not discover, that the least oppoai- pi * 

 tion was made to their entrance: in the second instance, ob- 

 serving the direction that the swarm took, I used all the ex- 

 pedition 1 could to arrive tirst at the tree, to which I supposed 

 they were going, whilst a servant followed them ; and a de- 

 scent of ground being in my favour, and the wind against 

 them, I succeeded in arriving at the tree some seconds be- 

 fore them ; and 1 am perfectly confident, that not the least 

 resistance was opposed to their entrance. to.ij 



Now it does not appear probable, that animals so much A previous 



attached to their property as bees are, so jealous of all ap- communit 'attoit 

 i j-i i n i • »• i between them 



proach towards it, and so ready to sacrifice their lives in de- must have 



fence of it, should suffer a colony of strangers, with whose taken place, 

 intentions they were unacquainted, to take possession, with- 

 out making some effort to defend it: nor does it seem much 

 more probable, that the same animals, which spent so much 

 time in examining their future habitation, in the cases I have 

 mentioned, should have attempted in this case to enter 

 without knowing whether there was space sufficient to con- 

 tain them, and without any examination at all. I must 

 therefore infer, that some previous intercourse had taken 

 place between the two swarms, and that those in the posses- 

 sion of the cavities were not unacquainted with the inten- 

 tions of their guests; though the formation of any thing 

 like an agreement between the different parties be scarcely 

 consistent with the limitations generally supposed to be 

 fixed by nature to the instinctive powers of the brute crea- 

 tion. 



Brutes have evidently language; but it is a language of Brutes have 

 passion only, and not of ideas. They express to each other lan § ua g e to 

 sentiments of love, of fear, and of anger; but they appear sions only : 

 to be wholly incapable of transmitting to each other any 



ideas 



