The Life of the Bee 
unrecognisable threshold would they seem for 
ohne instant to pause. Such experiments as 
lie in our power point rather to their guiding 
themselves by an extraordinarily minute and 
precise appreciation of landmarks. It is not 
the hive that they seem to remember, but 
its position, calculated to the minutest frac- 
tion, in its relation to neighbouring objects. 
And so marvellous is this appreciation, so 
mathematically certain, so profoundly in- 
scribed 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 position, all the workers, on their 
return from the earliest flowers, will in- 
fallibly steer their direct and unwavering 
course to the precise spot that it filled the 
previous year; and only after some hesita- 
tion 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. 
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