348 ON THE INFLUENCE OF MALE AND FEMALE PARENTS. 



either of cotyledons, or plumule, nor of anything that appeared to 

 correspond with internal organisation of a seed of the same plant under 

 different circumstances. Spallanzani, has not I believe, mentioned the 

 species of gourd upon which he made his experiments : the common, or 

 orange gourd of our gardens, was the subject of mine. 



In comparing the mode of the formation and growth of eggs with 

 the observations I had previously made on the growth of seeds, I 

 have been favoured with the very able assistance of Mr. Carlisle, for 

 which I have on this, as on many other occasions, to acknowledge much 

 obligation. 



II. ON THE ECONOMY OF BEES. 

 [Read before the ROYAL SOCIETY, May }4th, 1807.} 



IN the prosecution of those experiments on trees, accounts of which 

 you have so often done me the honour to present to the Royal Society, 

 my residence has necessarily been almost wholly confined to the same spot ; 

 and I have thence been induced to pay considerable attention to the 

 economy of bees amongst other objects ; and as some interesting circum- 

 stances in the habit of these singular insects appear to have come under 

 my observation, and to have escaped the notice of former writers, I take 

 the liberty to communicate my observations to you. 



It is, I believe, generally supposed that each hive or swarm of these 

 insects remains at all times wholly unconnected with other colonies in the 

 vicinity, and that the bee never distinguishes a stranger from an enemy. 

 The circumstances which I shall proceed to state will, however, tend to 

 prove that these opinions are not well founded, and that a friendly inter- 

 course not unfrequently takes place between different colonies, and is 

 productive of very important consequences in their political economy. 



Passing through one of my orchards rather late in the evening in the 

 month of August in the year 1801, I observed that several bees passed 

 me in a direct line from the hives in my own garden to those in the 

 garden of a cottager, which was about a hundred yards distant from it. 

 As it was considerably later in the evening than the time when bees 

 usually cease to labour, I concluded that something more than ordinary 

 was going forward. Going first to my own garden, and then to that of 

 the cottager, I found a very considerable degree of bustle and agitation 

 to prevail in one hive in each : every bee as it arrived seemed to be 

 stopped and questioned at the mouth of each hive, but 1 could not 



