192 ANIMAI. INTELLIGENCE. 



their wings in this way for five-and-twenty minutes. When 

 they are tired they are relieved by others. According to Jesse, 

 the bees in very hot weather, in spite of all their efforts, are 

 unable to sufficiently lower the temperature, and prevent the 

 melting of some of the wax ; they then get into a condition of 

 great excitement, and it is dangerous to approach them. In such 

 a case they also try to mend matters by a number leaving the 

 hive and settling in large masses on its surface, so as to protect 

 it as much as possible from the scorching rays of the sun. 



Although the described plan of ventilation is remarkable 

 enough in itself, it is yet more remarkable in that it is clearly 

 only the result of bee-keeping, and is evoked by this misfortune. 

 For there could be no need of such ventilation for bees in a 

 state of nature, whose dwellings in hollow trees and clefts of 

 rocks leave nothing to be desired as to roominess and airiness, 

 while in the narrow artificial hive this need at once comes out 

 strongly. In fact, the fanning of the bees almost entirely ceased 

 when Huber brought them into large hives five feet high, in 

 which there was plenty of air. It follows, therefore, that the 

 fanning and ventilating can have absolutely nothing to do with 

 a,n inborn tendency or instinct, but have been gradually evoked 

 by necessity, thought, and experience. 



As the following observation on the cautious sagacity 

 of wasps is, so far as I am aware, new, and as it certainly 

 does not admit of mal-observation, I introduce it on the 

 authority of a correspondent, the Rev. Mr. J. W. Mossman, 

 who writes from Tarrington Rectory, Wragby. He found 

 an apple in his orchard which had fallen from a tree in 

 apparently good condition ; but on taking it up observed 

 that it was little more than a shell filled with wasps. 

 GKving the apple a shake, he saw a wasp slowly emerging 

 from a single small aperture in the rind : — 



This aperture was sufficient, and only just sufficient, to admit 

 of the ingress or egress of a single wasp. The circumstance 

 which struck me as very remarkable was this — that the wasp 

 •did not make its way through the aperture vdth its head first, 

 as I should have expected, but with its tail, darting out its 

 «ting to its utmost extent, and brandishing it furiously. In this 

 manner it came out of the apple backwards. Then, finding itself 

 in the open air upon the outer surface of the apple, it turned 

 round, and without any attempt to molest me, flew off in the 

 usual way. The moment this first wasp had emerged, the sting 



