28 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



demonstration is sufficient. Neither the bewildering move- 

 ments of a rotation like I have described ; neither the obstacle 

 of hillocks to pass over and of woods to cross ; neither the 

 snares of a track which starts, goes back, and comes again by 

 a very circuitous way can confuse the Chalicodomas on their 

 homeward way and hinder them from coming back to the 

 nest." When these experiments are summarised, however, it 

 appears that only forty-seven bees out of 144 actually found 

 their way home, which is a very small proportion when the 

 question of a special unerring instinct is involved. 



The following experiment, conducted by the late Mr. 

 Eomanes, conclusively proves that it is by sight, and sight 

 alone, that bees find their way home: "In connection/' he 

 says, " with Sir John Lubbock's paper at the British Asso- 

 ciation, in which this subject is treated, it is perhaps worth 

 while to describe some experiments which I made last year. 

 The question to be answered is whether bees find their way 

 home merely by their knowledge of land - marks, or by 

 means of some mysterious faculty usually termed a ' sense 

 of direction.' The ordinary impression appears to have been 

 that they do so in virtue of some such sense, and are there- 

 fore independent of any special knowdedge of the district in 

 which they may be suddenly liberated ; and, as Sir John 

 observes, this impression was corroborated by the experi- 

 ments of M. Fabre. The conclusions drawn from these 

 experiments, however, appeared to me, as they appeared to 

 Sir John, unwarranted by the facts, and therefore, like him, 

 I repeated them, with certain variations. In the result I 

 satisfied myself that the bees depend entirely upon their 

 special knowledge of the district or land-marks, and it is be- 

 cause my experiments thus fully corroborate those which were 

 made by Sir John that it now occurs to me to publish them. 

 The house where I conducted the observations is situated 

 several hundred yards from the coast, with flow T er-gardens on 

 each side and lawns between the house and the sea. There- 

 fore bees starting from the house would rind their honey on 

 either side of it, while the lawns in front would be rarely or 

 never visited, being themselves barren of honey and leading 

 only to the sea. Such being the geographical conditions, I 

 placed a hive of bees in one of the front rooms on the 

 basement of the house. When the bees became thoroughly 

 well acquainted with their new quarters by flying in 

 and out of the open window for a fortnight I began 

 the experiments. The modus operandi consisted in 

 closing the window after dark when all the bees were in 

 their hive, and also slipping a glass shutter in front of the 

 hive-door, so that all the bees were doubly imprisoned. 

 Next morning I slightly raised the glass shutter, thus enabling 



