SENSE OF HEARING. 41 



ately regulated by that sound ; and yet after these unqualified 

 admissions, he still ventures to express his doubt, as to the 

 bees being vested with the faculty of hearing. On this 

 subject, however, Huber very justly observes, that it was a 

 matter of great astonishment to him, to hear the queen bees 

 speak the French language ; and we may be allowed to add, 

 that our astonishment exceeds that of Huber, that any 

 individual can be found at the present day, who can give 

 the slightest credence to the many absurdities, which he has 

 promulgated relative to the natural history of the bee. 



For the purpose, however, of setting at rest the question 

 of the sense of hearing existing in the common bee, and 

 deciding it in the affirmative, let the following experiment 

 be tried. Drive about two or three hundred bees out of the 

 hive into an empty one. Place the back of a chair or a 

 piece of board parallel with the entrance of the hive, and 

 throw a table cloth over it. Shake the bees upon the cloth, 

 and then with the feathered end of a goose-quill, or any 

 other instrument conveniently at hand, guide about half a 

 dozen bees to the entrance of the hive. They will no sooner 

 be sensible of the odour of the hive, than they will set up a 

 loud humming noise, accompanied with the quick tremulous 

 motion of their wings so well known to apiarians, which 

 noise will be no sooner heard by the remaining bees, than 

 they will instantly flock towards the entrance with their cus- 

 tomary token of joy, and in less than half a minute not a 

 bee will be seen on the cloth. 



In regard to the locality of the organ of hearing, we fear 

 that it will ever remain a disputed point ; it has hitherto 

 baffled the researches of the most acute anatomical skill, 

 and the positive existence of the sense is all that can be at 

 present definitely determined. 



It has been long a subject of inquiry amongst apiarians, 

 as to the particular sense by which the bee is guided, in 

 directing its course to its distant fields of pasture, and in the 

 c 5 



