SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ON BEES AND WASPS. 129 



instance, on the 2nd of October I placed some honey on slips of 

 glass resting on black, white, yellow, orange, green, blae, and red 

 paper. A bee which was placed on the orange returned twenty 

 times to that slip of glass, only once or twice visiting the 

 others, though I moved the position and also the honey. The 

 next morning again two or three bees paid twenty-one visits to 

 the orange and yellow, and only four to all the other slips of 

 glass. I then moved the glass, after which, out of thirty-two 

 visits, twenty-two were to the orange and yellow. These and 

 other experiments seemed to me to show a real disposition, which 

 was also well marked in the case of wasps, towards the orange 

 and yellow. That they can see blue, however, is indicated by the 

 following experiment : — Oct. 6. I had ranged my colours in a line, 

 with the blue at one end. It was a cold morning, and only one 

 bee came. She had been several times the preceding day, gene- 

 rally to the honey which was on the blue paper. This day also 

 she came to the blue ; I moved the blue gradually along the line 

 one stage every half hour, during which time she paid fifteen 

 visits to the honey, in every case going to that which was on the 

 blue paper. 



Sotmd. — Aug. 29. The result of my experiments on the hearing 

 of bees has surprised me very much. It is generally considered 

 that to a certain extent the emotions of bees are expressed by 

 the sounds they make *, which seems to imply that they possess 

 the power of hearing. I do not by any means intend to deny 

 that this is the case. Nevertheless I never found them take any 

 notice of any noise which I made, even when it was close to them. 

 I tried one of my bees with a violin. I made all the noise I could, 

 but to my surprise she took no notice. I could not even see 

 a twitch of the antennae. The next day I tried the same with an- 

 other bee, but could not see the slightest sign that she was con- 

 cious of the noise. On Aug. 31 1 repeated the same experiment 

 with another bee, with the same result. On the 12th and 13th of 

 September I tried several bees with a dog-whistle and a shrill 

 pipe ; but they took no notice whatever, nor did a set of tuning- 

 forks which I tried on a subsequent day have any more effect. 

 These tuning-forks extended over three octaves, beginning with a 

 below the ledger-line. I also tried with my voice, shouting &c. 

 close to the head of a bee ; but in spite of my utmost efforts, the 



* See for instance Landois, Zeits. f. wiss. Zool. 1867, p. 184. 



