¥56 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
be reckoned in its infancy. The microscopists 
have dissected her antennz 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 antennz 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 
antenne 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 
