HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



i37 



strengthened it by additional wax ribs, and it ulti- 

 mately became the thickest comb of the set. 



About the same time a similar accident happened 

 to a newly hived swarm, which had been furnished 

 with combs of considerable size. These combs had, 

 doubtless, not been securely attached, and the 

 weight of the syrup, which I had supplied too 

 liberally, brought down the largest comb of the lot 

 upon the cross pieces of wood driven through the 

 skep. Here, ready to topple over, however slightly 

 the balance might be disturbed, it rested, and the 

 sagacious little fellows, to avert the impending 

 catastrophe, set to work with such goodwill that it 

 was soon securely attached to the rods, although 

 lying horizontally, thus preventing any further upset 

 of their domestic arrangements. This preliminary 

 operation finished, and not before, the bees ventured 

 to remove the whole of the syrup, afterwards so 

 skilfully adapting this and neighbouring combs to 

 each other, that, in process of time, the aspect of the 

 full hive differed but slightly from that of a hive 

 v, herein no such accident had happened. * After 

 witnessing the proceedings of the bees, I could not 

 doubt that, conscious of the danger to the com- 

 munity, should the insecure comb have fallen to the 

 floor, and conscious, also, that the crowding of a 

 body of workers upon one end of the nicely balanced 

 comb would probably precipitate the catastrophe it 

 was their object to avert, they had avoided the ends 

 of the waxen see-saw until the centre was made 

 immovable. 



In the case of another hive in the same row, a 

 fallen comb actually reached the floor board ; this 

 being a serious obstacle to the efficient working of 

 the hive, it was bit by bit removed, instead of being 

 adapted. These random instances of bee intelligence 

 will, I think, be sufficient to shew that they can 

 contrive, adapt, and most successfully meet excepiional 

 difficulties. 



As an example of their sagacity, let me relate the 

 following. During my absence from home, a large 

 swarm of bees having been hived, the hive, with its 

 floor board, was upon the ground, awaiting removal 

 to its stand, when the attention of my wife was 

 attracted by the remarkable proceedings of two bees, 

 which were apparently directing their course towards 

 the mouth of the hive, although at the distance of 

 about a yard from it. Stooping to observe them 

 more closely, she discovered to her surprise that the 

 foremost was a queen, who was being urged forward 

 by her companion, a worker, this latter displaying 

 quite as much intelligence in driving the mother of 

 the colony as would a drover driving an erratic cow. 

 Now he would touch her gently with his antennae, 

 as if coaxing her to proceed, now hasten her lagging 

 feet by a push up behind ; now appear on the right, 

 and anon on her left side, as she seemed inclined to 

 deviate from a direct course. Soon he was joined by 

 a second worker, who came out to meet them, and 



helped to escort his queen, and before the hive door 

 was reached, she was surrounded by a crowd of 

 delighted subjects, who led her in triumph to her 

 new home. 



Whether the first bee designedly set out in search 

 of the missing queen, or whether he accidentally 

 discovered her, his intelligence was, I think most 

 persons will allow, equally remarkable, not, however, 

 more so than I have witnessed in hundreds of 

 instances. Young, and probably idle, bees are com- 

 monly driven out to their field work, for idlers are 

 not tolerated in these industrious communities by 

 the_ older bees, who follow them to the edge of the 

 board, urging them forward by pushing their heads 

 against their hinder parts. The driven one fairly off, 

 the hive is re-entered and the process repeated. 



{To be continued.) 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Mr. A. G. Cameron, of H. M. Geol. Survey, writing 

 to the " Geological Magazine," says that fuller's earth 

 is used in the fen districts of Cambridgeshire and 

 Lincoln to purify the water, rendering it colourless 

 and pleasant to the taste. It greatly weakens chaly- 

 beate water filtered through it, and will clarify muddy 

 water, while springs rising from below the fuller's 

 earth are said to be remarkably limpid and free from 

 earthy impurities. 



In connection with the columnar structure of the 

 basalt of the Giant's Causeway, a letter in " Science" 

 describing hexagonal columnar structure in sub- 

 aqueous clays is interesting. It was observed in the 

 clays occurring in the nearly vertical side of a deep 

 railway cutting near Menomonee, Wis., U.S. The 

 columns, some of which fell out individually, varied 

 in diameter from ten to fifteen or sixteen inches, were 

 irregularly six-sided, and showed convex and concave 

 surfaces where divided across their longer axes, 

 parallel to the bedding planes. These cross-section 

 surfaces exhibited also distinctly concentric, though 

 somewhat interrupted, lines, — structure lines, not 

 colour lines. 



At a recent meeting of the Royal Meteorological 

 Society the report of a Committee appointed ten 

 years ago on the decrease of water supply in springs, 

 streams and rivers, and on the rise of flood level in 

 cultivated regions was read. The drought period, of 

 which till lately we had an example, is said to occur 

 in cycles of ten years, and to be followed by a wet 

 season. In accordance with this view, Mr. Baldwin 

 Latham expected a wet season next autumn. The 

 lowering of the water level in the chalk of the London 

 basin was attributed, not to the condition of the 

 general water supply, but to the constantly increasing 

 pumping from new artesian wells. 



