THE YOUNG QUEENS 131 



J. H. Fabre, of Lubbock, and, above all, of Romanes {Nature, 

 October 29, 1886), seem to establish that it is not this strange 

 instinct that guides them. I have, on the other hand, more 

 than once noticed that they appear to pay no attention to 

 the colour or form of the hive. They are attracted rather 

 by the ordinary appearance of the platform on which their 

 home reposes, by the position of the entrance, and of the 

 alighting-board. But this even is merely subsidiary. Were 

 the front of the hive to be altered from top to bottom during 

 the absence of the w^orkers, they would still unhesitatingly 

 direct their course to it from out the far depths of the horizon, 

 and only when confronted by the unrecognisable threshold 

 would they seem for one instant to pause. Such experiments 

 as lie in our power point rather to their guiding themselves 

 by an extraordinarily minute and precise appreciation of land- 

 marks. It is not the hive that they seem to remember, but 

 its position, calculated to the minutest fraction, in its relation 

 to neighbouring objects. And so marvellous is this apprecia- 

 tion, so mathematically certain, so profoundly inscribed in 

 their memory, that if, after five months' hibernation in some 

 obscure cellar, the hive, when replaced on the platform, 

 should be set a little to right or to left of its former posi- 

 tion, all the workers, on their return from the earliest flowers, 

 will infallibly steer their direct and unwavering course to the 

 precise spot that it filled the previous year ; and only after 

 some hesitation and groping will they discover the door, 

 which stands not now where it once had stood. It is as 

 though space had preciously preserved, the whole winter 

 through, the indelible track of their flight : as though the 

 print of their tiny, laborious footsteps still lay graven in the sky. 



