566 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



cise 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 greet- 

 ings of ants of the same society when brouglit together after a separation 

 of four months; and the return of a party of bees in spring to a window 

 where in the preceding 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 Ridgeinont, Holderness. About twenty years ago, a swarm 

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

 tlie tiles of his house, whence, after remaining a few hours, they were dis- 

 lodged and hived. For many subsequent years, when the hives descended 

 from this stock were about to swarm, a considerable party of scouts were 

 observed for a few days before to be reconnoitring about the old hole under 

 the tiles; and Mr. Stickney is persuaded that if suffered they would have 

 established themselves there. He is certain that for eight years successively 

 the descendants of the very stock that first took possession of the hole 

 frequented it as above stated, and not those of any other swarms ; having 

 constantly noticed them, and ascertained that they were bees from the 

 original hive by powdering them while about the tiles with yellow ochre, 

 and watching their return. And even at the present time there are still 

 seen every swarming season about the tiles bees, which Mr. Stickney has 

 no doubt are descendants from the original stock. 



Had Dr. Darwin been acquainted with this fact, he would have adduced 

 it as proving that insects can convey traditionary information from one 

 generation to another ; and at the first glance the circumstance of the 

 descendants of the same stock retaining a knowledge of the same fact for 

 twenty years, during which period there must have been as many genera- 

 tions of bees, would seem to warrant the inference. But as it is more 

 probable that the party of surveying scouts of the first generation was the 

 next year accompanied by others of a second, who in like manner con- 

 ducted their brethren of the third, and these last again others of the fourth 

 generation, and so on, — I draw no other conclusion from it than that bees 

 are endowed with memory, which I think it proves most satisfactorily. 



I am, &c. 



1 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 stridulation of insects, before re- 

 ferred to in treating of their noises. He kept for several days a praying mantis {31. 

 rdigiosa) in a box, and fed it with flies. On first placing it in its new abode he 

 irritated it with 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 -svings 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. Eiit. de Fiance, x. bu'l xviii.) 



