The Life of the Bee 



ably of some kind of tactile language or 

 magnetic intuition, corresponding per- 

 haps to senses and properties of matter 

 wholly unknown to ourselves. And such 

 intuition well might lodge in the myste- 

 rious antennae — containing, in the case 

 of the workers, according to Cheshire's 

 calculation, twelve thousand tactile hairs 

 and five thousand " smell-hollows," where- 

 with they probe and fathom the darkness. 

 For the mutual understanding of the bees 

 is not confined to their habitual labours ; 

 the extraordinary also has a name and 

 place in their language ; as is proved by 

 the manner in which news, good or bad, 

 normal or supernatural, will at once spread 

 in the hive ; the loss or return of the 

 mother, for instance, the entrance of an 

 enemy, the intrusion of a strange queen, 

 the approach of a band of marauders, the 

 discovery of treasure, etc. And so char- 

 acteristic is their attitude, so essentially 

 i6o 



