INSTINCT OP INSECTS. 501 



A distinct instinct which inspires bees with such dread 

 of rain, that even if a cloud pass before the sun, they 

 return to the hive in the greatest haste ^ ; and that seems 

 to me not less so, which teaches them to find their way 

 back to their home after the most distant and intricate 

 wanderings. When bees have found the direction in 

 'vhich their hive lies, Huber says they fly to it with an 

 extreme rapidity, and as straight as a ball from a mus- 

 ket'' i and if their hives were always in open situations, 

 one might suppose, as Huber seems inclined to think, 

 that it is by their sight they are conducted to them. 

 But hives are frequently found in small gardens em- 

 bowered in wood, and in the midst of villages sur- 

 rounded and interspersed with trees and buildings, so 

 as to make it impossible that they can be seen from a 

 distance. If you had been with me in 1815, in the fa- 

 mous Pays de Waes in Flanders — where the country 

 is a perfect flat, and the inhabitants so enamoured ei- 

 ther of the beauty or profit of trees, that their fields, 

 which are rarely above three acres in extent, are con- 

 stuntli/ surrounded with a double row, making the 

 Vvhole district one vast wood — you would have pitied 

 the poor bees if reduced to depend on their own eye- 

 tight for retracing the road homeward. In vain during- 

 my stay at St. Nicholas I sallied out at every outlet to 

 try to gain some idea of the extent and form of the 

 town. Trees — trees — trees — still met me, and inter- 

 cepted the view in every direction ; and I defy any in- 

 habitant bee of this rural metropolis, after once quit- 

 ting its hive, ever to gain a glimpse of it again until 

 nearly perpendicularly over it. The bees, therefore, 



• Huber, i. 336. ' IbUl. ii, 3G7. 



