BEES AND WASPS — SENSE OF DIKECTION. 149 



obstructed to a person looking from the new situation of the 

 hive. 



Notwithstanding this change, the bees every day flew to the 

 locality where they formerly lived, and continued flying around 

 the site of what had been their home until, as night came on, 

 they many of them sank upon the grass exhausted and chilled 

 by the cold. Numbers, however, returned alive to their new 

 position, after having looked in vain for their hive in its old 

 place. At night I picked the exhausted bees up, and having 

 restored warmth to them (by leaving them for a time on my 

 coat-sleeve), I returned them to their companions. 



Here was an illustration that the faculty of memory was 

 superior to that of observation ; but that was not all. Nearly 

 every bee which I picked up during the 23 days through which 

 this efibrt of memory lasted was an old one, as was easily de- 

 duced from observing the worn edges of the wings ; showing 

 that whilst the young insects were quick in receiving new im- 

 pressions and in correcting errors, the nervous system of the 

 old bees continued acting in the direction which early habit had 

 effected. So true it is that 'one touch of nature makes the 

 whole world kin.' 



A closely similar observation has been told me by a 

 friend, Mr. Greorge Tm-ner. He found that when he 

 removed a beehive only a yard or two from its accus- 

 tomed site, the bees, on returning home, flew in swarms 

 around the latter, and for a long time were unable to find 

 the hive. And several other similar cases might be 

 adduced. Lastly, Thompson says : — 



It is highly remarkable that they [bees] know their hive 

 more from its locality than from its appearance, for if it be re- 

 moved during their absence and a similar one be substituted, 

 they enter the strange one. If the position of a hive be changed, 

 the bees for the first day take no distant flight till they have 

 thoroughly scrutinised every object in its neighbourhood.^ 



On the other hand, the writer of the article on ' Bees ' 

 in the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' says that in certain parts 

 of France it is the habit of bee-keepers to place a number 

 of hives upon a boat, which, in charge of a man, floats 

 slowly down a river. The bees are thus continuously 

 changing their pasture-ground, and yet do not lose their 

 locomotive hives. 



' Passions of Animals, p. 53. 



