Mr. Newport on the Honey Bee. 61 
and, as if watching for her departure, I have repeatedly seen him, 
at midday, wheeling his heavy oscillatory flight in front of the bee- 
house, with his head constantly directed towards the entrance of 
the hive. Every one must have remarked the acuteness of sight 
in the dragon-fly, and with what instantaneousness it avoids the 
approach of danger, even at a considerable distance,—darting up- 
wards, sideways, and in every direction, when chased by the 
swallow on the stream,—-and when danger is passed that it con- 
stantly returns to the same spot. It captures its prey by sight, 
with the rapidity of thought, while hovering continually over the 
same water-plant; and, after an extensive flight around the pool, 
by the hedge-row, or in the air, hawking in quest of food, it 
returns again and again with its captures, and alights to devour 
them on the selfsame leaf. 
The whole family of butterflies also are in the habit of return- 
ing to the same spot within a very short period. The cabbage 
butterflies repeatedly visit the same plants. The nettle butterfly 
usually revisits the same group of nettles after less than an hour’s 
absence; and I have often observed the gay autumnal species, 
Vanessa Atalanta, at the end of September, when but few flowers 
are in bloom, return frequently to the selfsame group of blossoms 
of an Arbutus, although the shrub was secluded and almost hidden 
by larger plants. This occurred not merely on the same day, 
but on the fine mornings of succeeding days. 
Who can doubt that these, the gayest of nature’s children, are 
directed in their movements by that sense with which nature has 
provided them to a greater extent than any other of her mag- 
nificent productions? or that to this endowment she has added a 
recollection of locality and of objects once recognized, observed 
by means of that perfected sense? ‘This is proved to be the fact 
by the proceedings of the little solitary bee Megachile centuncu- 
laris, which I have detailed on a former page of this volume. By 
the sense of vision this insect was led to select that material, the 
carded cotton cloth, which it was impossible for her to have found 
in a state of nature in this country, and yet which was the best 
adapted for her object in departing from her usual habit; while 
on two succeeding days she remembered the locality in-which it 
was to be obtained, and returned again and again to the same 
spot to procure that which she regarded as best fitted for her 
purpose. 
