H4 The Animal Mind 



on the other hand, who knows bees thoroughly, thinks that 

 the sense of hearing plays a considerable part in their life. 

 He believes that the disturbance produced by the loss of a 

 queen is communicated to the whole hive by the peculiar 

 wailing noise made by some members and instinctively 

 imitated by the others, and that this disturbance is calmed 

 by a similar dissemination of the " happy humming" pro- 

 duced on her restoration hearing playing a more important 

 part than smell. The starting of a swarm, he thinks, is also 

 largely a matter of sound communication. The process be- 

 gins by the coming out of certain bees which push in among 

 the bees hanging at the entrance of the hive and stir them up 

 to swarming by making sounds. The "swarm-tone" is 

 peculiar and often disturbs the inhabitants of neighboring 

 hives that are not ready to swarm. Also, a swarm can be 

 guided to a new dwelling if a few bees are taken there ; they 

 call the others by loud humming. If during this process the 

 new hive is moved, the bees will go on for a few moments in 

 the direction in which they started, then slowly turn, guided 

 by the tone. A few may keep on in the original direction. 

 We may look with suspicion, however, upon von Buttel- 

 Reepen's suggestion that these latter, having passed beyond 

 hearing of the call, are guided by the recollection of the tone 

 they heard at first ! He refers also to the shrill noise made by 

 the young queens ready to swarm, and to the peculiar uneas- 

 iness produced when a strange queen is being attacked, and 

 resulting, he thinks, from her " cries of pain" (72). 



37. Hearing in Fishes 



Throughout the vertebrate animals there exist structures 

 bearing analogy to our own ears, whose function might there- 

 fore be supposed to be auditory. But in the lowest verte- 

 brates the only structures of the human ear represented are 



