156 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



be reckoned in its infancy. Tlie microscopists 

 have dissected her antennae and isolated all their 

 various parts, but of the particular functions of 

 these little or nothing is known at present. There 

 are certain hairs, evenly distributed over the whole 

 surface, which are presumably instruments of 

 touch. But there are other hairs, or fine cones, 

 which are hollow, enclosing a delicate nerve-fibre; 

 hairs set loosely in a cavity; hairs curved and 

 ringed, and of different lengths. Then there are 

 mysterious pits and depressions, either open or 

 covered with incredibly thin membranes, enshrin- 

 ing nerve-ends only just visible with the highest 

 objectives. And the whole is linked up in an 

 intricate nervous system that baffles every art and 

 patience of research ; while, when all has been 

 investigated and described, no one is really any 

 the wiser. 



The antennae are certainly touch-organs, and, in 

 all likelihood, it is by their means that the bee 

 hears and smells. Yet this only exhausts a few 

 of their manifest possibilities. It is quite clear 

 that we must admit the honey-bee to possess other 

 senses than the five we know of; and — for a guess 

 — some of these mysterious implements on her 

 antennae may be thought-transmitters and -re- 

 ceivers on the wireless plan. The wonderful 

 unanimity of action among bees may be due to 

 the fact that they can exchange ideas through the 

 air, as men have now at last come to do. The 



