NATURE 



[May 3, 1883 



few remarks upon a passage in Mr. Romanes' very interesting 

 book on "Animal Intelligence." At p. 188 he says: "Bee- 

 masters who attend much to their bees, so as to give the insects 

 a good chance of knowing them, are generally of the opinion 

 that the insects do know them, as shown by the comparatively 

 sparing use of their stings." If by this he means that the bees 

 recognise and become accustomed to the scent of persons who 

 attend much to them, I quite agree with him, but I do not 

 believe that their recognition goes any further. I keep two 

 apiaries at a considerable distance from each other, to one of 

 which my gardener, a coloured Malay, attends, and to the other 

 a Kafir labourer. At first they were generally stung when 

 pas-ing too near the entrance of a hive, but now they pass and 

 repass with impunity. They work with the bees more frequently 

 than I do, and yet when either of them assists me in his own 

 apiary, he receives more stings than I do. This I ascribe to the 

 gardener's using snuff in his mouth very freely, and to the 

 Kafir's very pronounced odour. To test the recognition of the 

 bees 1 once requested the Malay and the Kafir to change clothes 

 with each other, and wear thick veils over their heads and faces. 

 They did so, and assisted me first in the apiaries to «hich they 

 were respectively in the habit of attending, with the result that 

 they received no stings, but when either began to work with the 

 bees in the apiary he usually did not attend to, he was so stung 

 about the hands that he had to beat a hasty retreat, whilst I 

 remained uninjured, although not veiled. The two men are 

 almost of the same size and build, so that if the bees had any 

 power of general recognition they would probably (as some of 

 the other servants did) have mistaken the one for the other. I 

 can, therefore, only account for the conduct of the bees by the 

 unpleasant, and to them strange, odour. At my request the 

 gardener discontinued the use of snuff in his mouth for some 

 time, and during that time he was not stung more than I was 

 while working with bees, but if the Kafir stands before the 

 entrance of an unaccustomed hive he is remorselessly stung. I 

 may add that Cape bees are very much more vicious than 

 European ones seen to be, and that, if not skilfully handled, 

 they will unmercifully sting their most familiar friends. On one 

 occasion a bunch of carrots was left near the gardener's apiary, 

 which so enraged the bees that they stung him and every one else 

 they came across, and very nearly stung a cow to death at 

 a distance of about a hundred yards from the apiary ; and on 

 another occasion a horse, still wet with sweat, trespassed too 

 near a hive, with the result that the whole apiary was in an 

 upr ar, and some of my children and servants were stung, the 

 chief victim being a Malay girl who used to apply quantities of 

 scented pomatum to her hair, and who was severely stung on the 

 head. Mr. Romanes continues thus : " Again, many instances 

 might be quoted, such as that given by Gueringius, who allowed 

 a species of wasp, native to Natal, to build in the doorposts of 

 his house, and who observed that, although he often interfered 

 with the nest, he was only once stung, and this by a young wasp ; 

 while no Kafir could venture to approach the door, much less to 

 pass through it." It does not appear whether any white stranger 

 was ever stung, and the only inference that can be reasonably 

 drawn fiom the conduct of the wasps is that they disliked the 

 odour of Kafirs, which, as is well known, is peculiarly disagree- 

 able. If a particular Kafir had been in the habit of passing 

 through the door, the wasps would probably have become accus- 

 tomed to his scent in the same way as a swarm of bees, upon the 

 testimony of Sir John Lubbock, became accustomed to the scent 

 of eau-de-cologne repeatedly dropped at the entrance of their 

 hive. J. H. DE Villieks 



Wynberg House, Wynberg, Cape of Good Hope, April 3 



The change from schist to granite on the north side of the 

 peninsula of Ross, which the Duke speaks of as "obscured at 

 the head of Loch Laigh," does, according to my observation, 

 not take place there, but a little further west, in a bay between 

 Loch Laigh and the inlet leaning to Ardfenaig. The change 

 can be traced foot by foot there most perfectly, and any number 

 of specimens of it in all stages can be picked up on the beach. 



Though, however, the metamorphic origin of the Mull granite 

 is, in my opinion, beyond doubt, I think that the metamorphic 

 agent has yet to be discovered. The most plausible hypothesis 

 is that it was a superincumbent mass of trap, but an inspection 

 of the very destructive influence of the trap dykes that we meet 

 with in the quarries upon the granite about them makes this 

 very unlikely to my mind. For some distance on each side of 

 such dykes the granite is quite useless. 



9, Angel Place, Edmonton, April 23 Wm. Muir 



Helix pomatia 



As Helix pomatia appears to be very partial in its distribution 

 in this country, it may be worth while to record the fact that I 

 have met with it on and near the chalk downs in the neighbour- 

 hood of Epsom, and on the chalk downs above the village of 

 Hambledon, in South Bucks; while Mr. J. E. Harling states 

 that it is not uncommon on the chalk hills in the vicinity of 

 Reigate and Dorking, and in parts of Kent. 



Forbes and Hanley, in their " History of British Mollusca," 

 say "it is entirely confined to the southern counties, livingchiefly 

 on cretaceous soils"; but we learn from Mr. G«yn Jeffreys 

 (Nature, vol. xxvii. p. 510) that it is abu idant at Woodford, 

 in Northamptonshire ; and from Mr. Blomefield (Nature, vol. 

 xxvii. p. 553) that it occurs sparingly in Gloucestershire, neither 

 of these counties being cre'aceous. 



With regard to its passible introduction into this country by 

 the Romans, we gather from V enables' trustworthy work on the 

 Isle of Wight that Helix pomatia has not been met with in the 

 island, although it was occupied — and probably permanently- — 

 by lhat people ; but H. scalaris, which, according to some mala- 

 cologists is a monstrous form of this species, has been found 

 there. Its absence from the Lie of Wight may be said to be 

 somewhat remarkable, seeing that the species extends in the 

 south at lea-t as far as the borders of West Sussex, and that the 

 other British chalk-frequenting Helieida, H. caperata, 11. 

 ericetorum, and H. virgaia, are very abundant in the island. 

 Either of two causes may account for its absence from this 

 locality : — it may be a geol igically recent importation from its 

 original (?) centre in France, and has not yet succeeded in navi- 

 gating the salt waters of the Solent ; or its exceptionally large 

 size may have proved its destruction in its expo ed favourite 

 haunts. The latter supposition is the more probable one, as it 

 would account for its general rarity, and at the same time help 

 to explain the prevalence in the same exposed haunts of the 

 smaller Helicidte. l'AUL HENRY StoKOE 



Wycombe Court, Bucks 



The Metamorphic Origin of Granite 

 As I had charge of the granite quarries in Mull during the 

 five years ending 1875, and am still closely connee'ed with them, 

 I would like to say that the conclusions stated in the Duke of 

 Argyll's letter in your issue of last week (p. 578) are beyond all 

 question correct, and are the same as I formed from independent 

 observation while I lived at the quarries. 



In addition to the facts mentioned in the Duke's letter, I 

 would say that the structure shown by the granite while de- 

 caying under atmospheric action and the cleavage which it i 

 shows in the quarry all may point to its having been a stratified 

 rock at one time ; and in several places on the shore of the j 

 Sound of Iona and in North Bay Quarry, patches of semi-meta- j 

 morphosed schist are found in the granite. One very fine 

 specimen is on the north side of Fionphort Bay. 



The Zodiacal Light (?) 



Referring to the sunset phenomena described by J. W. B., 

 of Bath, in Nature, vol. xxvii. p. 580, permit me to inform 

 you that I also was an observer and was well aware from 

 previous experience that it was not the zodiacal light, which, as 

 seen in the evening from any latitude north of the tropics- always 

 inclines to the left, and, if seen in the morni ig, in the east, 

 then to the right, whilst the phenomena in question appeared as. 

 a vertical column, of a warm tint, extending upwards to about 

 5° from where the sun had ju t set moving to the right, and 

 descending with that luminary, continuing visible for about thirty 

 minutes from the time I first noticed it immediately after the sun 

 had gone down behind the low range of the Yorkshire Wolds, 

 distant from my garden five or six miles in a north-west 

 direction. 



Having never before witnessed a similar phenomenon, although 

 I have had for upwards of eleven years an uninterrupted view of 

 the sunset region of the sky, and, except in midw inter, am nearly 

 always at home at sunset, and on fine evenings in the garden, I was 

 somewhat puzzled as to whether the cause was local and atmo- 

 spheric or otherwise. 



If your correspondent can refer to the "Heavens," by 

 Guillemin, p. 86, 1st edition, or to Milner's "Gallery of 

 Nature," 1st edition, p. 62, he will there see woodcut representa- 



