I30 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



of the crowd, of secluded darkness, shrink from the vault 

 of blue, from the infinite loneliness of the light ; and their 

 joy is halting, and woven of terror. They cross the threshold 

 and pause ; they depart, they return, twenty times. They 

 hover aloft in the air, their head persistently turned to the 

 home ; they describe great soaring circles that suddenly sink 

 beneath the weight of regret ; and their thirteen thousand 

 eyes will question, reflect, and retain the trees and the fountain, 

 the gate and the walls, the neighbouring windows and houses, 

 till at last the aerial course whereon their return shall glide 

 has become as indelibly stamped in their memory as tiiough 

 it were marked in space by two lines of steel. 



68 



A new mystery confronts us here which we shall do 

 well to challenge ; for though it reply not, its silence still 

 will extend the field of our conscious ignorance, which is the 

 most fertile of all that our activity knows. How do the bees 

 contrive to find their way back to the hive which they cannot 

 possibly see, which is hidden, perhaps, by the trees, and in 

 any event must form an imperceptible point in space ? How 

 is it that, if taken in a box to a spot two or three miles from 

 their home, they will almost invariably succeed in finding their 

 way back ? 



Do obstacles offer no barrier to their sight .? Do they 

 guide themselves by certain indications and landmarks, or 

 do they possess that peculiar, impei-fectly understood sense 

 which we ascribe to the swallows and pigeons, for instance, 

 and term the " sense of direction " ? The experiments of 



