150 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



It may be here worth while to add, parenthetically, as 

 the only authentic observation with which I am acquainted 

 concerning the distance that bees are accustomed to 

 forage, the following statement of Prof. Hugh Blackburn. 

 Writing from Grlasgow University to * Nature,' ^ he says 

 that bees are found in a certain peach-house every spring 

 at the time of blossom, although, so far as he can ascer- 

 tain, the beehives nearest to the peach-house in question 

 are his own, and these are at a distance of ten miles. 



On the whole, then, and in the absence of further 

 experiments, we must conclude it to be probable that the 

 sense of direction with which hymenopterous insects are, 

 as shown by some of Sir John Lubbock's experiments, un- 

 questionably endowed, is of no small use to them in find- 

 ing their way from home to food and vice versa ; although 

 it appears certain, from other of his experiments, that 

 this sense of direction is not in all cases a sufficient guide, 

 and therefore requires to be supplemented by the definite 

 observation of landmarks. 



But the most conclusive evidence on this latter point 

 is afforded by a highly interesting observation of Mr. 

 Bates on the sand-wasps at Santurem, which may here be 

 suitably introduced, as the insects are not distantly allied. 

 He describes these animals as always taking a few turns 

 in the air round the hole they had made in the sand 

 before leaving to seek for flies in the forest, apparently in 

 order to mark well the position of the burrow, so that on 

 their return they might find it without difficulty. This 

 observation has been since confirmed in a striking manner 

 by Mr. Belt, who found that the sand- wasp takes the most 

 precise bearings of an object the position of which she 

 desires to remember. This observation is so interesting 

 that it deserves to be rendered in extenso : — 



A specimen of Polistes carnifex (i.e. the sand-wasp noticed 

 by Mr. Bates) was hunting about for caterpillars in my garden. 

 I found one about an inch long, and held it out towards it on 

 the point of a stick. It seized it immediately, and commenced 

 biting it from head to tail, soon reducing the soft body to a mass 

 of pulp. It rolled up about one-half of it into a ball, and pre- 



» Vol. xii. p. 68. 



