148 Lubbock’s Observations on Bees and Ants. [ March, 
of such a principle in the arrangement of museums would be equal 
to the different grades of text-books for different classes of students. 
Only the great amount of money needed to make so many differ- 
ent collections, and the still greater expense of maintaining them 
at the proper scientific standard, will prevent the arrangement of 
such manifold collections, though it would be the best way to ed- 
ucate the public. As science is to become simpler at every step . 
in advance, and to lift higher and higher the mystical veil now 
so impenetrable to those without scientific knowledge, we have a 
right to hope that hereafter the way indicated above will be made 
less expensive and rendered possible of attainment. Hence every- 
body is called upon to hasten the progress of science, as the most 
effective means for the advance of general knowledge. 
LUBBOCK’S OBSERVATIONS ON BEES AND ANTS. 
THE second of Sir John Lubbock’s series of Observations on 
Bees, Wasps, and Ants has recently been published in the Jour- 
nal of the Linnean Society, and the following extracts may give 
our readers some idea of the interesting nature of his observa- 
tions, which simply require a little time and patience, and could 
be tested and extended by one not an expert in systematic ento- 
mology or the anatomy of insects. It is surprising that there 
are not more observers of the habits of animals in this country, 
among young people. The last thing taught in our public schools 
is the habit of observation, the only path to reflection as well as 
independence in thinking. 
Lubbock’s earlier papers tended to show that while bees do not 
communicate information to one another, ants certainly have this 
power. Now our author publishes a series of facts, diaries of 
the doings of bees, which show, in his opinion, “ that some bees, 
at any rate, do not communicate with their sisters, even if they 
find an untenanted comb full of honey, which to them would be 
a perfect Eldorado. This is the more remarkable because these 
bees began to work in the morning before the rest, and continued 
to do so even in weather which drove all the others into the shel- 
ter of the hive. That the strange bees which I have re 
should have found the honey is natural enough, because there 
were a good many bees about in the room.” 
The following fact is mentioned by F. Müller as seeming also 
to show a limited power of communicating facts on the part of 
