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CHAPTER XII r. 



ON THE SUPPOSED SENSE OF DIRECTION. 



One of the most interesting questions connected with 

 the instincts and powers of animals has reference to the 

 manner in which they fiad their way back, after having 

 been carried to a distance from, home. This has by 

 some been attributed to the possession of a special 

 " sense of direction." 



Mr. Darwin suggested that it would be interesting 

 to try the effect of putting animals " in a circular box 

 ^^■ith an axle, which could be made to revolve very 

 rapidly, first in one direction and then in another, so 

 as to destroy for a time all sense of direction in the 

 insects. I have sometimes," he said, "imagined that 

 animals may feel in which direction they were at the 

 first start carried." In fact, in parts of France it is 

 considered that if a cat is carried from one house to 

 another in a bag, and the bag is whirled round and 

 round, the cat loses her direction and cannot return to 

 her old home. 



On this subject M. Fabre has made some interesting 

 and amusing experiments. He took ten bees belonging 

 to the genus Chalicodoma, marked them on the back 

 with a spot of white, and put them in a bag. He 

 then carried them half a kilometre in one direction, 

 stopping at a point where an old cross stands by the 



