188 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
tainty as if it was within their sight. To prove that it is 
by their scent that bees find it out, he put some behind 
a window-shutter, in a place where it could not be seen, 
leaving the shutter just open enough for insects, if they 
liked, to get at it. In less than a quarter of an hour 
four bees, a butterfly, and some house-flies had disco- 
vered it. At another time he put some into boxes, with 
little apertures in the lid, into which pieces of card were 
fitted, which he placed about two hundred paces from 
his hives. In about half an hour the bees discovered 
them, and traversing them very industriously, soon found 
the apertures, when, pushing in the pieces of card, they 
got to the heney. ‘That contained in the blossom of 
many plants is quite as much concealed, yet the acute- 
ness of their scent enables them to detect it. 
These insects, especially when laden and returning to 
their nest, fly in a direct line, which saves both time and 
labour. How they are enabled to do this with such cer- 
tainty as to make for their own abode without deviation, 
I must leave to others to explain. Connected with this 
circumstance, and the acuteness of their smell, is the fol- 
lowing curious account, given in the Philosophical Trans- 
actions for 1721, of the method practised in New En- 
gland for discovering where the wild hive-bees live in 
the woods, in order to get their honey. The honey- 
hunters set a plate containing honey or sugar upon the 
ground in a clear day. The bees soon discover and attack 
it: having secured two or three that have filled them- 
selves, the hunter lets one go, which rising into the air, 
flies straight to the nest: he then strikes off at right an- 
gles with its course a few hundred yards, and letting a 
