374 HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. LPackard. 



psychology. How a bee can return to its hive from afar 

 unless it remembers the way back we cannot understand. It 

 does not explain the fact to say that it is instinctive or due 

 to some impulse. The impulse is present, but it simply 

 urges the insect to start on tlie road ; memory aided by dis- 

 crimination and the sense of similarity show the bee how to 

 perform the journey, and select its own hive from among the 

 others near it. 



We may, with Kirby and Spence, not believe that the bee 

 is guided liome by varied scents, but in llogers' fine lines 

 can exclaim : 



"Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell? 

 Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell ? 

 With conscious truth retrace the mazy clue 

 Of varied scents that charm'd her as she flew ? 

 Hail, Memory, hail I tliy universal reign 

 Guards the least link of IJeing's glorious chain." 



No automaton could find its way back to a point from 

 which it had once started, however well the machine had 

 been originally wound uj). Nor does the common notion of 

 an inflexible instinct meet the case ! Memory is often due 

 to a repetition of certain experiences, and experiences lay 

 the foundation for instinctive acts ; it is the sum of these 

 inherited experiences which make up the total which passes 

 under the name of instinct. 



That bees, previous to flying away for long distances, ob- 

 serve closely the surrounding objects wliich serve as land 

 marks or guide-posts, seems proved by the statement of 

 Huber, that "if a hive be removed out of its ordinary posi- 

 tion, the first da}' after this removal the bees do not fly to a 

 distance without having visited all the neighboring objects. 

 The queen does the same when flying into tlie air for fecun- 

 dation." Does not the bee act in the same manner as we 

 would do on leaving for the first time a hotel in a strange 

 city? We mentally construct a topographical map as we 

 walk away from the house, in order to readily find our way 



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