Instincts and Habits of Bees. 99 



the defilement "by half a dozen members of the family, all visibly 

 solicitous for its welfare and safety. Wildman was one of the 

 most expert of manipulators ever known ; he could, do anything 

 with bees, until he had an attack of fever, and forthwith 

 his apiarian necromancy left him ; he could no longer operate 

 upon the hive with safety ; the bees smelt him out and punished 

 him, as he said, because the emanations from his skin were no 

 longer pleasant to them. Mr. James, in his charming essay on 

 the " Honey Bee," conjectures that the fever had robbed Wild- 

 man of his self-possession ; but it is worth a second thought 

 whether the explanation of the great apiarian was not, after all, 

 correct ; his physical system had undergone a change, and, 

 like the quails to the Israelites, he now " stunk in their 

 nostrils. " 



In the Pleasures of Memory (Part I.), Rogers imagines the 

 bee to fmd her way back to the hive by retracing the various 

 odours of the flowers she passed successively in her journey 

 outwards : — 



"With conscious truth retrace the mazy clue 

 Of varied scents, that charmed her as she flew," 



which is neither more nor less than a poet's fancy, as any one 

 may prove by simple observation. When bees are laden they 

 do not flit from flower to flower, or attempt to trace any mazy 

 clue ; they fly direct in the upper regions of the air, often at a 

 height of twenty to forty feet from the ground, and in high 

 summer they do the same on their journey outward, clearing the 

 causeway, mounting upward into the azure, and darting, by a 

 direct flight, towards the region they intend to explore for 

 sweets. Nevertheless, Rogers was near the mark, though only 

 in a poetic sense, for assuredly the sense of smell is that on 

 which bees are most dependent for guidance in their outdoor 

 work, as the sense of touch is, no doubt, the talisman which 

 guides them within. 



You have heard of the painter (some antediluvian Lance) 

 who represented peaches and pears with such fidelity that the 

 birds came and pecked at them, spoiling the picture and poi- 

 soning themselves with paint. Well, it occurred to me last 

 summer to amuse myself by ascertaining, if possible, whether 

 bees were attracted to flowers by their bright colours, or at 

 least of ascertaining whether they could distinguish real flowers 

 from counterfeits. So I got a quantity of artificial flowers of 

 the best possible make; they were of various kinds and colours, 

 and I took care to secure amongst them some tolerably good 

 imitations of the blossoms of clover, and Salvia nemorosa, two 

 of the best bee flowers. I planted these near a convenient spot, 

 both to attract the bees and to allow of constant observation. 



VOL. VI. NO. II. H 



