SMELL IN INSECTS. 47 



hid amongst the grass, thougli this was so dried up 

 with the extreme heat of the weather ( 1 825) that we 

 could perceive Uttle or no smell, even when close to 

 the place, and it was in the forenoon, when the sun 

 was bright and powerful, — a time when scents are 

 much less diffusable than in the cool of a dewy even- 

 ing.* Few circumstances, we think, could more 

 strikingly illustrate the acuteness of smell in these 

 useful insects. 



In bees, the odour of honey produces the most 

 obvious influence. Mr John Hunter mentions that 

 he has seen great commotion produced in a recent 

 swarm, in wet weather, when he supposed the bees 

 to have been hungry, by placing honey on the floor 

 of a glass hive, which gave him a good opportunity 

 of observing their proceedings. All of them ap- 

 peared to be eagerly on the scent, and even those 

 which were weak and hardly able to crawl, threw out 

 their tongues as far as possible to get at the honey .| 

 The elder Huber instituted some experiments still 

 more interesting. 



^ In order, ' he says, ' to ascertain whether the 

 appearance of the flowers or the odour of the honey 

 apprises bees of its presence, we placed honey in a 

 window, near a hive, where the shutters, almost close, 

 still permitted them to pass if they wished. Within 

 a quarter of an hour four bees and a butterfly had 

 insinuated themselves, and we found them feeding 

 thereon. For the purpose of a still more accurate 

 experiment, I had four boxes, different in size, shape, 

 and colour, made with small card shutters, corre- 

 sponding to apertures in the covering. Honey being 

 put into them, they were placed at the distance of 

 two hundred paces from my apiary. In half an hour 

 bees were seen trooping thither, and by carefully tra- 



* J. R. + Phil. Trans. 



