THE BEE. 



hand. It happened that this gentleman was attacked with a 

 violent and malignant fever, which long confined him to his bed 

 and his house. Upon his recovery he, naturally enough, revisited 

 his old friends the bees, and began to caress them and renew his 

 former familiarity. 



He found, however, to his surprise and disappointment, that he 

 was no longer in possession of their favour, and instead of being 

 received as formerly, his advances were resented as an unwel- 

 come and irksome intrusion ; nor was he ever afterwards able to 

 perform any of the usual operations upon them, or to approach 

 them without exciting their rage. 



177. According to Dr. Bevan and M. Feburier, both close and 

 accurate observers of the habits of the insect, red and black-haired 

 persons are peculiarly obnoxious to it. Feburier mentions a 

 mastiff to which his bees had a particular aversion, pursuing him 

 into the house with such pertinacity, that doors and windows 

 were obliged to be closed for his protection. 



Dr. Bevan mentions that he had two friends, brothers, one of 

 whom was so inoffensive to the bees, that he could stand with 

 impunity over the hive and watch all their doings, while the 

 other could scarcely enter the garden with impunity. 



178. The antennee are generally regarded as the proper organs 

 of the tactile sense, and hence are popularly, though not properly, 

 called feelers, the feelers being in fact the palpi already men- 

 tioned. Xaturalists are not agreed as to the functions of the 

 antennas, though all concur as to their importance. Some con- 

 sider them as organs of smell, others as organs of hearing ; while 

 others claim for them the place of organs of a sixth sense, of 

 which man and the higher animals are destitute. This sense is 

 considered by Kirby as an intermediate faculty between sight and 

 hearing, rendering the insect sensible of the slightest movement 

 of the circumambient air. Dr. Evans, as quoted by Dr. Bevan, 

 in reference to the faculty conferred on the bee by the antennae, 

 says, 



" The same keen horns, within the dark abode, 

 Trace for the sightless throng a ready road ; 

 While all the mazy threads of touch convey 

 That inward to the mind, a semblant day." 



The antennae, and the two pair of palpi, would seem to have 

 correlative and complementary functions : they are both in con- 

 stant motion. The palpi are in reality the feelers, in the proper 

 sense of the term ; as is apparent by observing the manner in 

 which the insect applies them to the food before eating it. 



179. Cuvier considers the organs of taste in the bee to consti- 

 tute one of its most important characters. The sensibility of these 



90 



