44 THE ANTENNA. 



says, that he saw the bees crossing their antennae in every 

 direction, some crossing them, some striking them ; and by 

 this method was the loss of the queen imparted to the 

 whole community ; the immediate result of which was, that 

 the bees were plunged into a state of the most pitiable 

 despair and despondency. 



According to the statement of Huber, this crossing of the 

 antennae of the bees may be considered as somewhat analo- 

 gous to the manual salutation of two men; but we are wholly 

 at a loss to divine what Huber means by striking the 

 antennae, and as we never witnessed the operation, we must 

 leave it in its original obscurity. It is however very pro- 

 bable that as the antennae of the bees are in constant mo- 

 tion, they might, on encountering one another, appear to 

 Mr. Huber, as if they were designedly crossed ; but that it 

 is one of the natural habits of the bee for the purpose of 

 communicating any disastrous intelligence, is not the least 

 of the many fictions for which that naturalist is so celebrated. 

 In regard to the crossing of the antennae being a fixed habit 

 of the bee for some specific purpose, he would have been 

 just as near the truth had he informed us, that two bulls 

 cross their horns for the purpose of informing each another 

 of the death of a cow. 



There is, however, another point in which we totally 

 differ from Huber in regard to the use of the antennae, for 

 he makes them not only the organs of smell, but also of 

 sight, and he extends this hypothesis so far as to assert, 

 that it is by means of the antennae acting as instruments of 

 vision, that the bees are able to construct their combs in the 

 darkness of night, besides other important uses to which 

 they are applied. Mr. Duncan, instead of putting a decided 

 negative upon this statement of Huber, tacitly acquiesces in 

 it, for he says " that Huber was probably not wrong in 

 ascribing to the antennae an important share in those opera- 

 tions ;" but let us ask Mr. Duncan whether the interior of a 



