84 STRUCTURE ADAPTED TO WANTS. 



which it breathes, and the formation of the eye, and 

 the internal organs, I will only say something of the 

 antennae. 



All the uses of these most important organs we 

 probably do not know, but, amongst other uses, they 

 are certainly means by which 

 the bees communicate one 

 with another, and for this pur- 

 pose are most exquisitely and 

 delicately formed. When bees 

 meet and, as their custom is, 

 cross their antennie, they un- 

 doubtedly speak to one an- 

 Head and AnteniiEE. other, whatever their language 



is. 

 It is also evidently by the touch of the antennas 

 that they distinguish friends from enemies, and also 

 by their use that they appear able to move, and 

 work in the darkness of the hive just as easily as if 

 they could see everything plainly. 



A queen-bee that had lost its antennae was ob- 

 served by Huber to be itself as one that was lost in 

 the hive — not to know its way about its own home, 

 and only anxious, as soon as possible — quite contrary 

 to the queen's usual instinct — to get out of the hive 

 into the daylight. 



One story will perhaps be sufficient to show their 

 importance as means of communicating news, and 

 that without them the bees cannot, as it were, talk to 

 one another. 



Into a hive full of bees a division was one day in- 

 serted, separating the whole colony into two portions 



