Hudson. — On the Senses of Insects. 27 



could have the slightest doubt about her perceiving the 

 difference between the two colours. I also made a number 

 of similar observations with red, yellow, green, and white." 



The remarkable power which many animals have of find- 

 ing their way back after having been carried a long distance 

 from home has been explained by some persons as due to a 

 special faculty which has been termed a " sense of direction." 

 In connection with this subject M. Fabre made a number of 

 interesting and amusing experiments. " He took ten bees 

 belonging to the genus Ghalicodoma, marked them on the 

 back with a spot of white, and put them in a bag. He then 

 carried them half a kilometre in one direction, stopping at a 

 point where an old cross stands by the wayside, and whirled 

 the bag rapidly round his head. While he was doing so a 

 good woman came by, who was not a little surprised to find 

 the professor standing in front of the old cross solemnly 

 whirling a bag round his head, and, M. Fabre fears, strongly 

 suspected him of some satanic practice. However this may 

 be, M. Fabre, having sufficiently whirled his bees, started off 

 back in the opposite direction, and carried his prisoners to a 

 distance from their home of three kilometres. Here he again 

 whirled them round and let them go one by one. They made 

 one or two turns round him, and then flew off in the direction 

 of home. In the meanwhile his daughter Antonia was on the 

 watch. The first bee did the mile and three-quarters in a 

 ■quarter of an hour. Some hours after two more returned ; 

 the other seven did not reappear. The next day he repeated 

 this experiment with ten other bees ; the first returned in five 

 minutes, and two more in about an hour. In this case again 

 seven out of ten failed to find their way home. In another 

 experiment he took forty-nine bees. When let out a few 

 started wrong, but he says that, ' while the rapidity of the 

 flight allows me to recognise the direction followed,' the 

 great majority flew homewards. The first arrived in fifteen 

 minutes. In an hour and a half eleven had returned, in five 

 hours six more, making seventeen out of forty-nine. Again, 

 he experimented with twenty, of which seven found their way 

 home. In the next experiment he took the bees rather 

 further — to a distance of about two miles aud a quarter. In 

 an hour and a half two had returned, in three hours and a 

 half seven more ; total, nine out of forty. Lastly, he took 

 thirty bees. Fifteen, marked rose, he took by a roundabout 

 route of over five miles ; the other fifteen, marked blue, he 

 sent straight to the rendezvous, about a mile and a half from 

 home. All the thirty were let out at noon ; by 5 in the even- 

 ing seven ' rose ' bees and six ' blue ' bees had returned, so 

 -that the long detour had made no appreciable difference. 

 These experiments seem to M. Fabre conclusive. The 



