My Boyhood and Touth 



entered without the least hesitation, filled up 

 and started off after the same preparatory 

 dressing and taking of bearings as before. Then 

 I took particular pains to lay down the exact 

 course so I would be able to trace it to the hive. 

 Before doing so, however, I made an experi- 

 ment to test the worth of the impression I had 

 that the little insect found the way back to the 

 box by fixing telling points in its mind. While 

 it was away, I picked up the honey-box and 

 set it on the stake a few rods from the position 

 it had thus far occupied, and stood there watch- 

 ing. In a few minutes I saw the bee arrive at 

 its guide-mark, the overleaning branch on the 

 tree-top, and thence came bouncing down right 

 to the spaces in the air which had been occu- 

 pied by my head and the honey-box, and when 

 the cunning little honey-gleaner found nothing 

 there but empty air it whirled round and round 

 as if confused and lost; and although I was 

 standing with the open honey-box within fifty 

 or sixty feet of the former feasting-spot, it 

 could not, or at least did not, find it. 

 [ 238 1 



