28 ANTS AND SOME OTHER INSECTS. 



they do not distinguish colors. On the contrary, by means of other 

 experiments I have fully confirmed Lubbock's results. 



By 2.20 P. M. all of my bees, even the painted ones, had re- 

 turned to the Dahlias. 



On September 27, a week later, I wished to perform a fresh 

 experiment with the same bees. I intended to make them distin- 

 guish between differently colored discs, placed at different points on 

 a long scale, representing on a great sheet of paper, varying intensi- 

 ties of light from white through gray to black. First, I wished to 

 train a bee to a single color. But I had calculated without the 

 bee's memory, which rendered the whole experiment impracticable. 

 Scarcely had I placed my paper with the discs on the lawn near 

 the Dahlia bed, and placed one or two bees on the blue discs and 

 marked them with colors, when they began to investigate all the 

 red, blue, white, black and other discs with or without honey. After 

 a few moments had elapsed, other bees came from the Dahlia bed 

 and in a short time a whole swarm threw itself on the paper discs. 

 Of course, those that had been provided with honey were most vis- 

 ited, because they detained the bees, but even the discs without 

 honey were stormed and scrutinised by bees following one another 

 in their flight. The bees besieged even the paint-box. Among 

 these there was one that I had previously deprived of her antennae. 

 She had previously partaken of the honey on the blue discs and 

 had returned to the hive. This bee examined the blue piece of 

 paint in the color-box. 



In brief, my experiment was impossible, because all the bees 

 still remembered from a former occasion the many-colored artefacts 

 provided with honey, and therefore examined all the paper discs 

 no matter of what color. The association between the taste of the 

 honey and the paper discs had been again aroused by the sight- 

 perception of the latter, and had acquired both consistency and 

 rapid and powerful imitation, because honey happened to be actually 

 found on some of the discs. 



Together with the perceptive and associative powers, the 

 power of drawing simple, instinctive inferences from analogy is 

 also apparent. Without this, indeed, the operation of perception 



