INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 599 



flowers which it has visited ; but this idea is more poetical than accurate, 

 bees, as before observed, flying straight to their hives from great distances. 

 Here, as I have more than once had occasion to remark in similar instances, 

 we have to regret the want of more correct entomological information in 

 the poet, who might have employed with as much effect, the real fact of 

 bees distinguishing their own l)ives out of numbers near them, when con- 

 ducted to the spot by instinct. This recognition of home seems clearly 

 the result of memory ; and it is remarkable that bees appear to recollect 

 their own hive rather from its situation, than from any observations on the 

 hive itself^ : just as a man is guided to his house from his memory of 

 its position relative to other buildings or objects, without its being neces- 

 sary for him even to cast a look at it. If, after quitting my house in a 

 morning, it were to be lifted out of its site in the street by enchantment, 

 and replaced by another with a similar entrance, I should probably, even 

 in the daytime, enter it, without being struck by the change ; and bees, if 

 during their abscence their old hive be taken away, and a similar one set 

 in its place, enter this last ; and if it be provided with brood-comb con- 

 tentedly take up their abode in it, never troubling themselves to inquire 

 what has become of the identical habitation which they left in the morn- 

 ing, and with the inhabitants of which, if it be removed to fifty paces 

 distance, they never resume their connection,^ If, pursuing my illustra- 

 tion, you should object that no man would thus contentedly sit down in a 

 new house without searching after the old one, you must bear in mind that 

 I am not aiming to show that bees have as precise a memory as ours, but 

 only that they are endowed with some portion of this faculty, which I 

 think the above fact proves. Should you view it in a different light, you 

 will not deny the force of others that have already been stated in the 

 course of our correspondence : such as the mutual greetings of ants of 

 the same society when brought together after a separation of four months ; 

 and the return of a party of bees in spring to a window where in the pre- 

 ceding autumn they had regaled on honey, though none of this substance 

 had been again placed there.^ 



But the most striking fact, evincing the memory of these last-mentioned 

 insects, has been communicated to me by my intelligent friend Mr. William 

 Stickney, of Ridgemont, Holderness. About twenty years ago, a swarm 

 from one of this gentleman's hives took possession of an opening beneath 



1 If a hive be removed out of its ordinary position, the first day after this removal the 

 bees do not fly to a distance wiihont having visited all the neighboring objects. The queen 

 does the same thing when flying into the air for fecundation. (Huber, Hecherches sur les 

 Funrmis, 100.) 



* See the account of the mode in which the Favignanais increase the number of their 

 hives by thus dividing them. (Huber, ii. 459.) 



3 A remarkable fact, proving at once that insects are endowed with memory, association 

 of ideas, and the sense of hearing, has been recorded by M. Goureau, the author of the 

 valuable observations on the siridulation of insects, before referred to in treating of their 

 noises. He kept for several days a praying mantis (M. rdigiosa) in a box, and fed it with 

 flies. On first placing it in its new abode he irritated it wiili a pen, and at the same time 

 gave a slight whistle. Apparently fearing an enemy, it put itself in a state of defence, 

 reared up its long thorax, placed its fore-feet as if to seize its prey, and half expanded its 

 wings and elytra, rubbing its abdomen repeatedly against their sides, so as to produce a 

 noise like that of parchment. ''From the first moment (continues M. Goureau) to the last 

 day that I kept it, every time that I visited it and gave the same slight whistle it assumed 

 its defensive attitude, and did not quit it till it judged the danger past." {Ann. Soc. Ent. de 

 France, x. bull, xviii.) 



