INTRODUCTION. vil 
suckers as if by stealth, for they kept as far back from it as pos- 
sible; but although they often appeared to suck it, we did not 
perceive it to become less in a quarter of an hour, long before 
which it would have disappeared had it not been mixed with musk.” 
Pounded asafcetida, whose odour is so disagreeable to us, upon 
being mixed with honey and put at the entrance of a hive, did not 
seem to annoy the bees, for they greedily sucked all the honey, 
neither attempting to withdraw, nor vibrating their wings, till 
they only left the particles of the gum. Huber found (ibid. p. 269) 
that the odour of their own poison had a very remarkable effect 
on bees. The sting of one was extracted and presented to some 
workers before the entrance of a hive. Although they had 
previously been quiet and tranquil, they became all at once much 
agitated. None flew away, but two or three darted against the 
sting, and one furiously assailed the experimenters. That it was 
the odour of the sting-poison alone which produced these violent 
emotions was obvious from their appearing insensible to its 
presence when it lost its scent by drying. In another instance bees 
were confined in a glass tube and irritated with an awn of barley, 
till they protruded their stings and left some poison on the sides 
of the glass. The mouth of the tube was then presented to a group 
of bees at the entrance of a hive and it soon produced the agitation 
of rage evidently unaccompanied with fear. 
Bomare relates an experiment (Dict. raisonné d’Hist. Nat., art. 
Punaise) to prove that the bed-bug (Cimewx lectularius) is not at- 
tracted, as popularly supposed, by heat, but by smell. He put a 
bug into an empty bed-chamber, and throwing himself upon the 
bed, perceived that the insect was not long in smelling him out 
and making a direct course towards his face. These insects form 
a very extensive family (Cimicide), and it is by no means im- 
probable that they and many other insects employ the offensive 
odours which nature has enabled them to discharge to produce 
effects of terror upon their enemies. The foetor of the various 
species of bugs is always similar, though their food is so various. 
The pretty little beetles called “ ladybirds ” (Coccinellidz), of 
