130 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
one of the lens by a little management; and this fact is well 
known to old microscopists when the eye is viewed by direct 
light. I should have replied sooner to your note, but I had 
to find and examine my spider-skin objects.—J. 8S. Bower- 
bank ; 2, East Ascent, St. Leonard’s-on-Sea, April 10, 1876.” 
Notwithstanding Mr. Enock’s firm conviction of the value 
and validity of the discovery, and notwithstanding also the 
very rational doubts thrown out by Dr. Bowerbank, I have 
thought it desirable to bring the whole subject under the 
notice of entomologists, hoping that, in the brief intervals 
they may snatch from the worship of the potato-bug and the 
vine-pest, they will find a solution of the most interesting 
question that has for a long time claimed their attention. It 
is fortunate that the ‘ Entomologist’ should have been the first | 
to record both the burrowing of trap-door spiders into the 
bark of trees, and the possession of a revolving eye by any 
member of the octopod exosteates. With regard to Dr. 
Bowerbank’s example it can scarcely be considered a parallel 
case, for the reptiles, and emphatically the chameleon, shed 
their skins entire, eyes and all; and yet they all possess a 
rotating motion in the eye, and the chameleon more than any 
other. Of course the discussion cannot end here, and it is, 
moreover, desirable that it should receive the most searching 
investigation. — EKdward Newman. | 
Instinct of Bees.—An interesting exhibition of the instinct 
of bees occurred to me during the summer. I had been 
professionally engaged in the town, about a mile from my 
residence, and upon returning in the middle of the day IL 
found my bees had swarmed. I always kept empty hives 
ready, and forthwith hived the bees, placing a white cloth 
over the hive, because the day was very hot, the sun 
powerful. I set the hive at one-end of a table close to the 
spot upon which the bees had fixed. At the time of hiving 
1 had not a hive-board ready to place the hive upon, but had 
one carefully prepared in readiness for the evening, when I 
proceeded to place the hive upon the board, preparatory to 
setling it in its position in the bee-house. Upon lifting the 
hive to set it upon the board, | observed the table, where the 
hive had stood, covered with numbers of bees, which soon 
began to run about in all directions, from their having been 
thus suddenly disturbed. [I did not feel inclined to interfere — 
