The Young Queens 
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 cer- 
tain indications and landmarks, or do they 
possess that peculiar, imperfectly understood 
sense which we ascribe to the swallows and 
pigeons, for instance, and term the “sense 
of direction”? The experiments of J. H. 
Fabre, of Lubbock, and, above all, of Romanes 
(Nature, October 29, 1886), seem to estab- 
lish 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 workers, 
they would still unhesitatingly direct their 
course to it from out the far depths of the 
horizon, and only when confronted by the 
195 
