Eyes, Antennae, and Brain 43 



place, even when the honey had been transferred to some 

 less attractive color. 



Bee-keepers sometimes paint their hives different colors 

 to enable the occupants to find their way home in a 

 crowded apiary. 



Vv'hile bees undoubtedly distinguish colors, and may have 

 their preferences, it is, as we have already seen, assuming 

 too much to say that color is the chief factor in attracting 

 them. 



Certainly white clover heads blossoming in a meadow of 

 overtopping grass are not conspicuous from their color, and 

 yet here you will always find the bees. Here they will 

 come from distant hives, if nearer clover pastures do not 

 stay them. 



How do they know? Do they scent the clover from 

 afar? or do they recognize the color environment of wliite 

 clover heads, the green smooth meadows, the low-growing 

 vegetation ? 



And when the fragrant load is gathered, what directs their 

 homeward course? Do they recognize the particular house, 

 barn, or clump of trees that overlooks their hive ? Some 

 sense they have that tells them its exact location, for, mount- 

 ing high in the air, they turn in the right direction and make 

 a " bee-line " for home. 



Apparently their eyes deceive them at times and lead 

 them to seek honey from the white expanse of glaciers and 

 snow-clad mountain tops where travellers frequently speak 

 of having seen them dead in large numbers. 



The bee's antennae are as necessary as its eyes in the 

 search for honey, and more necessary in other walks of 

 life. 



" And he shall sing how, once upon a time, the great 

 chest prisoned the living goat-herd, by his lord's infatuate 

 and evil will, and how the Blunt-faced-Bees, as they came 



