PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 467 



and a hybrid between the American and Common Trout, these being in 

 illustration of his paper " On Variation in Form and Hybridism in Salmo 

 fontinalis." 



Sir John Lubbock then read his tenth communication " Ou the Habits 

 of Ants, Bees, and Wasps." Two Queen Ants have lived with him since 

 1874, therefore are eight years old, and they laid eggs last summer. His 

 oldest workers are seven years old. Dr. Hermann Miiller's objections to 

 the author's experiments on the colour sense of bees had been anticipated. 

 The preference of bees for blue is strongly indicated by Miiller's own 

 observations on flowers. Sir John also now records further experiments 

 with reference to the power of hearing. Some bees were trained to come to 

 honey, which was placed on a musical box on the lawn close to a window. 

 The musical box was kept going for several hours a day for a fortnight. It 

 was then brought into the house, and placed out of sight, but at the open 

 window, and only about seven yards from where it had been before. The 

 bees, however, did not find the honey, though when it was once shown 

 them they came to it readily enough. Other experiments with a microphone 

 were without results. Bees are popularly — aud have been ever since the 

 time of Aristotle — supposed to be influenced by clanging kettles, &c. 

 Experienced apiarists are now disposed to doubt whether the noise has 

 really any effect; but Sir John suggests it as possible that the bees hear 

 only the higher overtones at the verge of or beyond our range of human 

 hearing. He timed a bee and a wasp, for each of which he provided a store 

 of honey, and he found that the wasp began earlier in the morning, at 

 4 a.m., and worked on later in the evening, till 8 p.m. It might be that 

 the wasps are less sensitive to cold. Moreover, though the bee's proboscis 

 is admirably adapted to extract honey from tubular flowers, the wasp, on 

 the other hand, appears able to swallow it more radidly. — J. Mueie. 



Zoological Society of London. 



November 14, 1882.— Prof. W. H. Flower, LL.D., F.R.S., President, 

 in the chair. 



The Secretary read a report on the additions that had been made to the 

 Society's Menagerie during the months of June, July, August, September, 

 and October, 1882, and called attention to certain interesting accessions 

 which had been received during that period. Amongst these were specially 

 noted examples of the New Caledonian Parrakeet, Nymphicus uvceensis, 

 presented by Mr. E. L. Layard ; a Heloderm Lizard, Heloderma horridum, 

 presented by Sir John Lubbock, Bart.; a pair of young River Hogs, Pota- 

 mochcerus africanus, presented by Mr. John Dunn and Col. Bowker ; and 

 an example of an apparently new species of Dog, supposed to have been 

 received from the Upper Amazons, and proposed to be called Canis microtis, 

 obtained by purchase. 



