376 HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. [Packard. 



ing scouts of the first generation was the next year accom- 

 panied by others of a second, who in like manner conducted 

 their brethren of the tliird, and these last again others of 

 the fourth generation, and so on, I draw no other conclu- 

 sion from it than that bees are endowed with memory, which 

 I think it proves most satisfactorily." 



The daily acts of a bee are quite complicated, if we take 

 into account all the journeys it makes, the pollen and honey 

 it collects, the complicated process of loading itself with the 

 mass, which it collects with its tongue, rearranges by means 

 of its jaws, transfers from the fore to the hind feet, and 

 piles up on its shallow honey-basket. Then think of the far 

 more difficult operations that it carries on within the hive. 

 How are the impressions gained in its first day's flight pre- 

 served, and not only this but transmitted to its descendants? 

 I am now speaking of the queen humble bee or wasp. The 

 only theory that seems to account satisfactorily for these 

 acts is the physical theory of some physiologists, as Beale, 

 that every mental act is accompanied by a change in the 

 cells of the nerve centres. This is largely a matter of spec- 

 ulation and must be regarded as such. Professor Bain has 

 from the facts afforded by Beale been led to make a hypo- 

 thetical comparison between, as he says, ''these two things, 

 our acquisitions on the one hand, and the nervous elements 

 of the brain on the other." He supposes that " with a total 

 of 200,000 acquisitions of the assumed types, which would 

 certainly include the most retentive and most richly-endowed 

 minds, there would be for each nervous grouping 5000 cells 

 and 25,000 fibres." Now this is hypothesis, mere guess 

 work, as the author avows, but based on anatomical facts. 

 Using this hypothesis simply for the purpose of illustration, 

 if these figures represent in a rude and meagre way the 

 number of cells and acquisitions in the brain and mind of 

 man, how exceedingly small must be the number of cells 

 and acquisitions in a bee's brain and mind. We know from 



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