The Life of the Bee 
credit the bee, from the moment it for- 
sakes the routine of its habitual labour, 
with any power of discernment or reasoning. 
This attitude of his may be due in some 
measure to an unconscious bias in. favour 
of the ants, whose ways he has more 
specially noted; for the entomologist is 
always inclined to regard that insect as the 
more intelligent to which he has more 
particularly devoted himself, and we have 
to be on our guard against this little 
personal predilection. As a proof of his 
theory, Sir John cites as an instance an 
experiment within the reach of all. If 
you place in a bottle half-a-dozen bees 
and the same number of flies, and lay the 
bottle down horizontally, with its base to 
the window, you will find that the bees 
will persist, till they die of exhaustion or 
hunger, in their endeavour to discover an 
issue through the glass; while the flies, 
in less than two minutes, will all have 
sallied forth through the neck on the 
opposite side. From this Sir John Lubbock 
concludes that the intelligence of the bee 
is exceedingly limited, and that the fly 
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