REASON AND LANGUAGE. 129 



well within the compass of instinct. There is no need 

 to suppose an intellectual communication by gesture, 

 but merely an instinctive stimulation inducing an 

 instinctive response. In some of the tales given by 

 Mr. Romanes, the language used plainly shows how 

 the narrator is saturated with prejudice. It is impos- 

 sible to place confidence in the narration of one to 

 whom dispassionate consideration has evidently been 

 impossible. We are told of a queen bee, which, when 

 laying eggs, in company with workers, in the cells of 

 the comb, missed four of the cells, and was thereupon 

 pushed back by the workers till she had traversed the 

 cells again more than once in vain. Thereupon the 

 comment is made : " Thus the workers knew how to 

 advise the queen that something was yet to be done ; 

 but they knew not how to show her where it had to 

 be done." In another instance we read that a hive 

 having been divided into two chambers by means of" 

 a partition, great excitement was caused in the half 

 where the queen was not ; but when Huber used a 

 trellis-work partition, through the openings of which 

 the bees could pass their antennae, then there was no 

 disturbance, because the bees in the half of the hive 

 where the queen was "were able to inform the others 

 that the queen was safe." Now, we do not deny that 

 the excited feelings of the bees could be thus appeased, 

 but there is no proof of it. The less complete separa- 

 tion made by the trellis-work partition might have 

 sufficed for this ; but the hasty inference to the con- 

 trary, and the expressions used, show plainly the animus 

 of the narrator. 



K 



