Mr. Newport on the Honey Bee. 57 
IX. On the means by which the Honey Bee finds its way 
back to the Hive. By Grorce Newport, F.R.C.S. &e. 
President of the Entomological Society. 
[Read 6 February, 1843.] 
Great difference of opinion has existed amongst naturalists as to 
the means by which the honey bee finds its way back to the hive 
it has left, and distinguishes its own residence from that of others. 
Some, most naturally, have believed that it is simply by the sense 
of vision; others, that it is by means of that of hearing, or of 
smell. Those who contend for the latter opinion have fancied 
that the bee is conducted by the odour of the flowers she has 
visited in her outward course: 
“ The varied scents that charmed her as she flew.” 
But this opinion is at once invalidated by the circumstance, re- 
marked by Dr. Bevan, that when a bee is returning to its hive, its 
flight is usually in a direct line. Indeed every observer must 
have remarked that the bee, like the carrier pigeon, after it has 
taken its first circuitous flight of recognition, is led by an almost 
unerring instinct directly to its home. Yet it is much to be 
questioned, whether it is simply by what we term instinct,—a 
term which we cannot sufficiently explain or fully comprehend,— 
that these animals are directed in their course ; or whether it does 
not chiefly depend on the perfection of one or more of their 
senses? One variety of the common dog will discover his master 
or his home by the sense of smell, but another, as the greyhound, 
simply by that of sight. All naturalists are aware that the sense 
of vision exists in the greatest perfection in vertebrated animals, in 
birds of flight, and such is the case in volant insects amongst the 
invertebrated. It is by means of this sense, the most perfectly 
developed of all the senses of insects, that the honey bee, as I 
am disposed to think, finds its way back to the hive, notwith- 
standing that some observations of naturalists seem to lead toa 
different conclusion. In order to put this opinion to the test of 
experiment, on the 11th of March, 1836, I removed one of my 
straw hives from the closed bee-house in which it had stood 
through the winter, to a stool in the open air, within sight of, but 
at a distance of about ten or fifteen yards from the bee-house. 
On the following day, the 12th, scarcely a bee went abroad, either 
from the bee-house or the removed hive; or from another straw 
hive which stood very near to it; the weather being exceedingly 
wet and boisterous. The 13th was a remarkably fine day, and 
