130 THK ENTOMOLOGIST. 



cue of the lens by a little management; and this fact is well 

 known to old microscopists when the eye is viewed by direct 

 light. I should have replied sooner to your note, but I had 

 to find and examine my spider-skin objects. — J. S. Bower- 

 hank ; 2, East Ascent, St. Leonaid's-on-Sea, April 10, 1876." 



Notwithstanding Mr. Knock's firm conviction of the value 

 and validity of the discovery, and notwithstanding also the 

 very rational doubts thrown out by Dr. Bowerbank, I have 

 thought it desirable to bring the whole subject under the 

 notice of entomologists, hoping that, in the brief intervals 

 ihey may snatch from the worship of the potato-bug and the 

 vine-pest, they will find a solution of the most interesting 

 question that has for a long time claimed their attention. It 

 is fortimate that the 'Entomologist' should have been the first 

 to record both the burrowing of trap-door spiders into the 

 bark of trees, and the possession of a revolving eye by any 

 member of the octopod exosteates. With regard to Dr. 

 Bowerbank's example it can scarcely be considered a parallel 

 case, for the reptiles, and emphatically the chameleon, shed 

 their skins entire, eyes and all ; and yet they all possess a 

 rotating motion in the eye, and the chameleon more than any 

 other. Of course the discussion cannot end here, and it is, 

 moreover, desirable that it should receive the most searching 

 investigation. — Edward Newman.] 



Instinct of Bees. — An interesting exhibition of the instinct 

 of bees occurred to me during the summer. J had been 

 professionally engaged in the town, about a mile from my 

 residence, and upon returning in the middle of the day I 

 found my bees had swarmed. I always kept empty hives 

 ready, and forthwith hived the bees, placing a white cloth 

 over the hive, because the day was very hot, the sun 

 powerful. I set the hive at one end of a table close to the 

 spot upon which the bees had fixed. At the time of hiving 

 1 had not a hive-board ready to place the hive upon, but had 

 one carefully prepared in readiness for the evening, when I 

 proceeded to place the hive upon the board, preparatory to 

 setting it in its position in the bee-house. Upon lifting the 

 hive to set it upon the board, I observed the table, where the 

 hive had stood, covered with numbers of bees, which soon 

 began to run about in all directions, from their having been 

 thus suddenly disturbed. I did not feel inclined lo interfere 



