44 NATURAL HISTORY. [CH. II. 



heat of the hive becomes so intolerable as to force 

 them to quit it. The mutilation of workers by am- 

 putation of the antennae produces similar effects ; 

 it causes them to neglect their labours, run into cor- 

 ners, or to some sunny spot, and ultimately quit the 

 hive never to return. Hence, it would seem that 

 the antennae are the organs of communication. As 

 a farther proof of it, the sentinels, in a moonlight 

 night, may be seen patrolling round their habitation 

 with these feelers stuck out. If some unhappy 

 moth, slyly endeavouring to steal into the habita- 

 tion, happen to come in contact with them, the sig- 

 nal is made, and a body of guards soon rush out to 

 chastise the interloper. 



The senses of smell, taste, feeling, vision, are 

 attributed to bees ; Huber doubts that they possess 

 the sense of hearing; their sense of sight is cer- 

 tainly acute in an extraordinary degree. If a dozen 

 hives be placed together, the bee, though at a great 

 distance, first rises in the air, and then, with almost 

 the swiftness of a bullet, proceeds in a straight line 

 to the entrance of its own habitation. If the eyes 

 be varnished over, they rise up in the air, or fly at 

 random. 



This capacity of the bee to make its way directly 

 to its nest has been made use of as a guide. In 

 New-England, the honey-hunters set a plate of 

 honey or sugar upon the ground ; and in a short 

 time this is discovered by the wild bees. Having 

 caught two or three of those that have taken their 

 fill, the hunter first releases one, which, rising into 

 the air, flies straight to the nest. He now walks at 

 right angles to the course of the bee for a few hun- 

 dred yards, and then lets another go, which also, 

 after rising, flies to the nest. Observing, with his 

 pocket compass, the angle where the two lines 

 formed by the two courses of the bees meet, there 

 he knows w ni Vw ^ fV, ° «not at which the nest is 

 placed. 



