INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 565 



also ; and their historian may exclaim with the poet who has so well sung 

 the pleasures of this faculty, 



" Hail, MEMORY, hail ! thy universal reign 

 Guards the least link of Being's glorious chain." 



In the elegant lines in which this couplet occurs 1 , which were pointed 

 out to me by my friend Dr. Alderson of Hull, Mr. Rogers supposes the 

 bee to be conducted to its hive by retracing the scents of the various flowers 

 which it has visited ; but this idea is more poetical than accurate, bees, 

 as before observed, flying straight to their hives from great distances. Here, 

 as I have more than once had occasion to remark in similar instances, we 

 have to regret the want of more correct entomological information in the 

 poet, who might have employed with as much effect, the real fact of bees 

 distinguishing their own hives out of numbers near them, when conducted 

 to the spot by instinct. This recognition of home seems clearly the result 

 of memory ; and it is remarkable that bees appear to recollect their own 

 hive rather from its situation, than from any observations on the hive 

 itself 2 : just as a man is guided to his house from his memory of its position 

 relative to other buildings or objects, without its being necessary for him 

 even to cast a look at it. If, after quitting my house in a morning, it were 

 to be lifted out of its site in the street by enchantment, and replaced by 

 another with a similar entrance, I should probably even in the day-time 

 enter it, without being struck by the change ; and bees, if during their ab- 

 sence their old hive be taken away, and a similar one set in its place, enter 

 this last; and if it be provided with brood-comb contentedly take up their 

 abode in it, never troubling themselves to inquire what has become of the 

 identical habitation which they left in the morning, and with the inhabitants 

 of which, if it be removed to fifty paces distance, they never resume their 

 connection. 3 



If pursuing my illustration, you should object that no man would thus 

 contentedly sit down in a new house without searching after the old one, 

 you must bear in mind that I am not aiming to show that bees have as pre- 



1 " Hark ! the bee winds her small but mellow horn, 



Blithe to salute the sunny smile of morn. 

 O'er thymy downs she bends her busy course, 

 And many a stream allures her to its source. 

 'Tis noon, 'tis night. That eye so finely wrought, 

 Beyond the search of sense, the soar of thought, 

 Now vainly asks the scenes she left behind ; 

 Its orb so full, its vision so confined ! 

 Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell ? 

 Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell ? 

 With conscious truth retrace the mazy clue 

 Of varied scents that charm 'd her as she flew ? 

 Hail, MEMORY, hail ! thy universal reign 

 Guards the least link of Being's glorious chain." 



8 If a hive be removed out of its ordinary position, the first day after this re- 

 moval the bees do not fly to a distance without having visited all the neighbouring 

 objects. The queen does the same thing when flying into the air for fecundation. 

 '(Huber, Recherches sur les Fourmis, 100.) 



3 See the account of the mode in which the Favignanais increase the number of 

 their hives by thus dividing them. (Huber, ii. 459.) 



o O 3 



