THE SENSES OF BEES. 45 



mata or coronetted eyes, arranged triangularly on its 

 centre, between the antennae. That these little specks 

 are, in reality, organs of vision, has been made appa- 

 ;ent from accurate experiments, in which, when the 

 reticulated eyes were blindfolded, the insect was evi- 

 dently not deprived of sight, though the direction of 

 its flight, being vertical, seemed to prove that the 

 stemmata were adapted only or chiefly to upward 

 vision. This additional organ must, doubtless, add 

 considerably to its power of sight, though, probably, 

 its aid may be confined chiefly to the obscure recesses 

 of the hive. As the internal operations of the insect 

 in the honey season are carried on during the night as 

 well as the day, the coronet-eyes may, as Reaumur 

 conjectures, serve to it the purpose of a microscope. 

 As to the general power of vision hi the Bee, its 

 organs appear better adapted to distant objects than 

 to such as are close at hand. When returning loaded 

 from the fields, it flies with unerring certainty, and 

 distinguishes at once its own domicile in the midst of 

 a crowded apiary. Yet every person who has at all 

 made this insect the subject of observation, must have 

 seen it often at a loss, in returning to its hive to find the 

 entrance, especially if its habitation has been shifted 

 ever so little from its former station ; nay, if, without 

 moving the hive, the entrance has been turned round 

 a single inch from its former position, the Bee flies 

 with unerring precision to that point on the alighting 

 board where the door formerly stood, and frequently, 

 after many fruitless attempts to find the entrance, it 

 is forced to rise again into the air, with a view, vsi 





