MANAGEMENT OF HONEY BEES. 41 
ced by the wings in flying, seem intended as 
a means of communication addressed to an 
organ of hearing, as signals of attack, of re-. 
call, of departure, &c. In consequence of a 
belief in the reality of this sense in Bees, the 
practice is common of beating sonorous bo- 
dies at the moment of swarming, in order to 
prevent them from communicating with one 
another, and thus to present an obstacle to 
their flying away. We know also that many 
other insects possess this faculty ; and, as we 
observe in the proceedings of Bees, the same 
effects which, in other insects, unquestion- 
ably proceed from the sense of hearing, we 
regard these effects as presumptive evidence 
of the former possessing the same faculty. 
Huber set out with intimating a doubt of 
its existence,—possibly, in deference to his 
friend Bonnet, to whom his letters are ad- 
dressed, and who was an unbeleiver in its 
reality,—yet, in the end, confesses that he is 
strongly tempted to believe in it, or at least, 
to admit a sense in Bees analogous to hearing, 
observing that certain sounds, as produced 
