CORRESP ONDENCE. 



123 



development of the sense of sight, smell, 

 or hearing, and the action of honey-bees pre- 

 sents the same difficulties to persons familiar 

 with the habits of these interesting insects. 

 In searching for wild honey, the bee-hunter 

 provides himself with a small box w^ith a 

 sliding door ; inside of this box he puts some 

 siveet substance as a bait for the bees. 

 When several bees have collected iu the box, 

 he closes the lid. As soon as they have 

 finished eating, he releases a bee, which, 

 after ascending high enough to clear the 

 surrounding trees, makes a " bee-line " for 

 its hive. The hunter marks this direction 

 and carries his box off at right angles to 

 the line made by the first bee, and releases 

 another bee ; he carefully marks the direc- 

 tion taken by this second bee, and, if they 

 are both from the same swarm, the hive 

 will be found at the point where these two 

 lines meet. 



I might cite well-authenticated cases of 

 cats, pigs, and dogs, finding their way home, 

 where such a feat would seem impossible to 

 man under like circumstances ; my object, 

 however, was not to theorize, but simply to 

 record what I consider some interesting ob- 

 servations bearing upon this subject. 



Last spring I built a trout-pond in my 

 garden, on the west side of a running brook 

 discharging about six hundred cubic feet of 

 water per minute. The brook is quite rapid 

 where it passes the pond, and the surface 

 of the pond is some five feet higher than 

 the surface of the brook. The pond is sup- 

 plied with water brought 2,000 feet in un- 

 derground pipes and discharged in a foun- 

 tain in the center of the pond. Common 

 bull-frogs {Rami pipiens) occasionally find 

 their way into this pond. On the 18tli of 

 last July I found three frogs in the pond, 

 and shot all of them with a pistol. I dipped 

 them up with a seoop-net, and found two of 

 them shot through the body, and the other, 

 a little fellow, weighing about two ounces, 

 was shot across the back, the bullet just 

 raising the skin and leaving a white streak 

 across its dark-green surface. I emptied 

 the three frogs out of the net into the swift- 

 running water of the brook, and they float- 

 ed down stream out of sight. On the 19th 

 of July, the day following, I found the 

 wounded frog in the pond again, and readily 

 recognized it by the scar from the bullet. 

 I found no difficulty in catching it in the 

 scoop-net, and, fearing that the scar might 

 disappear from its back, I cut off the cen- 

 ter toe of its right foot, put the frog into 

 a paper bag, carried it down the brook 

 across a bridge, and finally threw it into 

 the stream some one hundred yards below 

 the pond. 



On the 2ith of July I found the frog 

 back again, caught it, and, so as to leave no 

 doubt about its identification, I cut off the 

 middle toe of the left foot. I then put the 



frog in the paper bag, started from the 

 pond in a northeast course, stopped and 

 whirled the bag around so as to confuse any 

 ideas that it might have had of direction, 

 and then changed my course, and finally re- 

 leased the frog on the opposite side of the 

 brook in an oat-field about an eighth of a 

 mile in an easterly direction from the pond. 

 To prevent the frog from getting any idea 

 from watching me, I passed on after re- 

 leasing it, and did not go back again to the 

 pond for several hours. Three days after- 

 ward I saw the frog in the pond again, but 

 it was so wild that I could not catch it with 

 my scoop-net, and I afterward tried various 

 devices to capture it alive, but the moment 

 it saw me approach the pond it would jump 

 in and remain hidden in the stones at the 

 bottom until I left. Finally, despairing of 

 catching it alive, and having some doubts 

 about its identity, on the 9th of August I 

 shot it, and recognized it by the absence of 

 the cut-pE toes. 



The general direction is up-hill from 

 the point where the frog was last released 

 to the pond, and about the same distance 

 in a down-hill course would have taken the 

 frog to the Ausable River. It still remains 

 possible that the frog waited until night, 

 and then followed my tracks back to the 

 pond, but that seems improbable, I think, 

 even more so than to believe that the frog 

 knew all the time the direction of the pond, 

 and slowly worked its way back again as in- 

 clination prompted. 



George Chahoox. 

 AusABLS Forks, New York, August 16, 1S30. 



SCIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF 

 MICHIGAN. 

 Messrs. Editors. 



My eye has just fallen on your editorial 

 comments under the head of " Sewage in 

 College Education " ; and I can not resist the 

 impulse to point out a few of the errors into 

 which you have been drawn. Not much 

 space will be required, I think, to show that 

 the attitude of the University of Michigan 

 toward scientific and classical studies has 

 been quite misapprehended. 



In the first place, you are in error in 

 assuming that Bishop Harris spoke as the 

 representative of the University. Would it 

 have been fair to assume that Yale College 

 was represented by President White's fa- 

 mous address on the " Warfare of Science " ? 

 Each of these gentlemen was invited to de- 

 liver a commencement address, each chose 

 his own subject, each treated his subject in 

 his own way, and each was alone responsi- 

 ble for what he said. One sentence in the 

 Bishop's address may have misled you. I 

 refer to that in which he expressed his grati- 

 tude that classical studies still maintain their 



