314 SENSES OF BEES. 



find the entrances to their hives, if the relative 

 position of the entrances be altered, or the hives 

 be removed two or three yards from the place 

 where they have usually stood. In cases of re- 

 moval, the bees do not during the first day fly to 

 a distance, nor till they have visited and recognized 

 neighbouring objects. MR. ROGERS, in his " Plea- 

 sures of Memory," has noticed this defective 

 vision in the bee. Having spoken of her excursive 

 flights to a distance, and referred to her bending 

 her course homewards again, he observes, 



" 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 !" 



And he concludes that it is by the aid of memory 

 that she retraces her passage back to the hive, by 

 recognizing the scents of the various flowers 

 which she has passed or visited on her outward 

 journey, 



" The varied scents that charm'd her as she flew.*' 



But this idea, as Messrs. Kirby and Spence have 

 observed, is more poetical than accurate, the bees 

 being always accustomed to fly to their hives in 

 right lines. 



In consequence of this peculiarity of insect 

 vision, many of those bees that return homewards 



