354 THE LIFE OF AN INSECT. 



whose eyes had been varnished appeared not to 

 care to leave the box at all, and seemed very un- 

 willing to make any attempt to fly ; some of them, 

 indeed, flew about from one side to another, but 

 did not go far. Reaumur then threw several of 

 them up into the air, and they immediately began 

 to soar higher and higher, until at length they 

 went out of sight altogether ! Reaumur compares 

 the poor insect's manoeuvres to those of a crow, 

 whose head and eyes mischievous boys have 

 covered with a paper bonnet : the bird flies upward 

 until its strength is exhausted, when it drops again 

 to the earth. Not only did those bees which he 

 threw up into the air thus soar until they were 

 lost to view, but all the most active of those which 

 were left in the box did so likewise, and Reaumur 

 saw them no more. Not one could find its way 

 to the hive. From this experiment, and from the 

 preceding one, it is evident that both the com- 

 pound and the simple eyes are necessary to enable 

 the insect to see perfectly ; for when either was 

 varnished over, the bees could not find their way 

 to their home again. Reaumur imagines that the 

 cause of the wheeling flight of bees, sometimes 

 observed, now in this direction, now in the oppo- 



