Mr. Newport on the Honey Bee. 59 
which had gone out not having returned, as Huber believes, to 
apprise the population that remained of the quantity of honey 
abroad, or of the favourableness of the atmosphere for collecting it. 
One great anatomical fact which tends to support the opinion I 
am now advocating, that the bee usually finds its way back to the 
hive chiefly by the sense of sight, is the great extent to which the 
organ of vision is developed, and the peculiar fitness which the 
telescopic structure of the multitude of eyes of which the organ 
is composed possesses for viewing distant objects. Every one of 
the many thousands of lenses on the surface of the organ has 
been proved, by the researches of Miiller, Straus-Durckheim, 
and others, to be the inlet to a distinct eye lined with its proper 
choroid and retina, or nervous expansion, to which the impression 
of the images of distant objects received by the lenslike cornea 
are conveyed. The distance at which objects are clearly dis- 
tinguished by the insect is dependant chiefly on two circum- 
stances :—the relative diameter and convexity of the cornea to that 
of the whole eye; and the length of the chamber from the cornea 
to the retina, or expansion of the nerve. Now these conditions 
vary in different insects, and seem to have much reference to their 
habits. In those species in which the cornea is of great breadth, and 
the length of the chamber, or distance from the cornea to the retina, 
is very short, as in some of the Diptera, the distance at which 
objects are distinctly observed is necessarily restricted; but in 
those in which the corneze are numerous and small, and each 
forms on the surface a large segment of a circle, and the length 
of the chamber several times exceeds that of the breadth of the 
cornea, as in the bee, the distance of vision is greater in propor- 
tion to the length of the chamber, and the acuteness of the angle 
at which the rays of light impinge on the retina at its base. This, 
perhaps, may explain the reason why some of the cornee on the 
inferior portion of the mass of eyes are of greater diameter, and 
have the chambers shorter than those of the upper and exterior 
surface; so that some of these cornez have a greater sphere of 
vision, but a shorter focal distance; and thus are adapted for 
viewing near, as the others are more distant objects. 
This structure of the organ of vision in the bee is entirely in 
accordance with the usual mode of proceeding of this insect, and 
illustrates the fact of the bees leaving the bee-house and flying 
around in the air as if to reconnoitre the spot; and also another 
fact, which has in part been observed by others, and which I have 
frequently witnessed, namely, that for the first few days after a 
swarm has been hived the bees seldom fly far, and each bee, on 
