200 BEE'S HOMEWAED FLIGHT. 



unless of subtle accuracy infinitely surpassing those boasted 

 by ourselves, could direct either bee or bird through miles 

 of pathless air to one desired point ; nor, in some cases, as in 

 a bee's first excursion, can memory be the leading principle. 

 What, then, is the little traveller's guide ? Who can exactly 

 say? but we are inclined to look upon it as a faculty by 

 itself an additional sense, or a peculiar instinct call it 

 which we will whereby that Paternal Power, whose care is 

 over all, is pleased to conduct to their haunts of labour and 

 subsistence, and back again to their homes of safety not 

 alone the bee or bird, but a variety of other creatures, who 

 want a tongue to inquire the way. 



Howsoever guided, our bee labourer has arrived at her 

 "waxen city." Its outer rampart of straw conceals her from 

 our view as she disappears within its entrance ; but, thanks 

 to the inventor of glass hives,* and to those who have turned 

 them to good account, we shall be able, through the eyes of 

 others, and through the observations of the eyeless Huber, to 

 give a tolerable guess at the home proceedings of our laden 

 forager and her busy sisterhood. 



Our bee, as before noticed, was the bearer of a double load 

 pollen or dust of anthers in her thigh baskets, nectar in her 

 internal honey-bag ; but neither of these floral treasures have 

 been collected for herself. A working bee is no selfish or 

 single individual she is the devoted subject of^n idle mon- 



*Maraldi, an Italian mathematician, 1712. 



