The Young Queens 



sand eyes will question, reflect, and retain 

 the trees and the fountain, the gate and 

 the walls, the neighbouring windows and 

 houses, till at last the aerial course where- 

 on their return shall glide have become 

 as indelibly stamped in their memory as 

 though it were marked in space by two 

 lines of steel. 



[66] 



A new mystery confronts us here, which 

 we shall do well to challenge ; for though 

 it reply not, its silence still will extend the 

 field of our conscious ignorance, which 

 is the most fertile of all that our activity 

 knows. How do the bees contrive to 

 find their way back to the hive that they 

 cannot possibly see, that is hidden, per- 

 haps, by the trees, that in any event must 

 form an imperceptible point in space? 

 How is it that if taken in a box to a spot 

 two or three miles from their home, they 

 239 



