THE HONEY BEE. 261 



guided by other senses, there is much evidence which 

 seems to admit of no alternative explanation. Moisten, 

 for example, the feeler of a cockroach with a solution of 

 Epsom salts and watch him suck it off; or repeat F. Will's 

 experiments on bees, tempting them with sugar, and then 

 perfidiously substituting pounded alum. The way these 

 little creatures splutter and spit suggests that, whatever 

 may be the psychological effect, the physiological effect 

 is analogous to that produced by an exceedingly nasty 

 taste. Lehmann, too, observed a fly begin to suck some 

 sugar that had been moistened with bitter decoction of 

 wormwood. Directly it tasted the medicine it politely 

 and discreetly withdrew to a contiguous vase and endea- 

 voured to reject the nauseous drug. On the proboscis of 

 the bee there are minute pits, each with a central papilla, 

 which have been regarded as organs of taste, while on the 

 soft palatal skin of the labrum or upper lip there are a 

 number of sensory pits or cups with small papillae, which 

 Dr. Wolff describes as organs of smell, but which, as 

 Sir John Lubbock thinks, are more likely to be organs 

 of taste. 



Much has been written concerning the sense of smell in 

 insects. That they possess such a sense few will be dis- 

 posed to doubt. The classical observations of Huber seem 

 to show that bees are affected by the smell of honey, and 

 that the penetrating odour of fresh bee-poison will throw 

 a whole hive into a state of commotion. He was of 

 opinion that the impunity with which his assistant, 

 Francis Burnens, performed his various operations on 

 bees was due to the gentleness of all his movements, and 

 the habit of repressing his respiration, it being the odour 

 transmitted by the breath to which the bees objected. 

 Bevan mentions the case of M. de Hofer, who could 

 handle bees freely until struck down by fever, on his 



