156 evolution: the ages and tomorrow 



evolved for her the instinct which directs her to rely on 

 gravity: straight up a vertical wall is against gravity and is 

 substitute for directly into the sun; straight down is with 

 gravity and away from the sun; and so on. Von Frisch finds 

 it very remarkable that heading toward the sun should cor- 

 respond to movement against gravity. He would like, as no 

 doubt would all students of evolution, to examine this situa- 

 tion in more primitive bees where the origin of this behavior 

 may be revealed. The honeybee, now that a capacity for 

 language has been shown, provides a very fertile field for 

 biological psychology, especially since we have living today 

 almost all intermediate evolutionary stages. 



Even on cloudy days von Frisch found that bees could 

 still tell accurately where the sun was located and dance 

 correctly on returning to the hive. He made elaborate tests 

 of this ability to orient even when the sun was behind 

 clouds and came to the conclusion that the bee was able to 

 analyze polarized light. In recent years he has beautifully 

 demonstrated this with the use of special polarizer equip- 

 ment with which he can fool the bee into making mistakes. 

 He has shown that the facets of the bee's eyes are able to 

 analyze the light and that the nervous system can properly 

 assign the position of the sun on the basis of this analysis. It 

 might be added here that in the more or less unnatural case 

 where a returning scout bee finds itself on a horizontal sur- 

 face and can see the sun or some section of the sky, it will 

 dance as usual; but this time it will set the straight part of 

 the dance directly toward the flower. 



One can only speculate on the interesting question. How 

 would it feel to be born with nerve-machinery that makes it 

 possible to react purposefully and with assurance to com- 

 plex situations prior to any experience and without educa- 

 tion? What would it feel like, for instance, to be able to 

 construct a honeycomb— the cells accurately hexagonal, 

 perfectly dovetailed, double-plated, geometrically beautiful, 

 and all without teaching? What would it be like to fly 



