566 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 
cise a memory as ours, but only that they are endowed with some portion 
of this faculty, which I think the above fact proves. Should you view it in 
a different light, you will not deny the force of others that have already 
been stated in the course of our correspondence: such as the mutual greet- 
ings of ants of the same society when brought together after a separation 
of four months; and the return of a party of bees in spring to a window 
where in the preceding autumn they had regaled on honey, though none of 
this substance had been again placed there.’ 
’ But the most striking fact, evincing the memory of these last-mentioned 
insects, has been communicated to me by my intelligent friend, Mr. William 
Stickney, of Ridgemont, Holderness. About twenty years ago, a swarm 
from one of this gentleman’s hives took possession of an opening beneath 
the tiles of his house, whence, after remaining a few hours, they were dis- 
lodged and hived. For many subsequent years, when the hives descended 
from this stock were about to swarm, a considerable party of scouts were 
observed for afew days before to be reconnoitring about the old hole under 
the tiles; and Mr. Stickney is persuaded that if suffered they would have 
established themselves there. He is certain that for eight years successively 
the descendants of the very stock that first tock possession of the hole 
frequented it as above stated, and not those of any other swarms; having 
constantly noticed them, and ascertained that they were bees from the 
original hiye by powdering them while about the jtiles with yellow ochre, 
and watching their return. And even at the present time there are still 
seen every swarming season about the tiles bees, which Mr. Stickney has 
no doubt are descendants from the original stock. 
Had Dr. Darwin been acquainted with this fact, he would have adduced 
it as proving that insects can convey traditionary information from one 
generation to another ; and at the first glance the circumstance of the 
descendants of the same stock retaining a knowledge of the same fact for 
twenty years, during which period there must have been as many genera- 
tions of bees, would seem to warrant the inference. But as it is more 
probable that the party of surveying scouts of the first generation was the 
next year accompanied by others of a second, who in like manner con- 
ducted their brethren of the third, and these last again others of the fourth 
generation, and so on,—I draw no other conclusion from it than that bees 
are endowed with memory, which I think it proves most satisfactorily. 
Iam, &c. 
1 A remarkable fact, proving at once that insects are endowed with memory, 
association of ideas, and the sense of hearing, has been recorded by M. Goureau, 
the author of the valuable observations on the stridulation of insects, before re- 
ferred to in treating of their noises, He kept for several days a praying mantis (M. 
religiosa) in a box, and fed it with flies. On first placing it in its new abode he 
irritated it with a pen, and at the same time gave a slight whistle. Apparently 
fearing an enemy, it put itself in a state of defence, reared up its long thorax, 
placed its fore feet as if to seize its prey, and half expanded its wings and elytra, 
rubbing its abdomen repeatedly against their sides, so as to produce a noise like 
that of parchment. “From the first moment (continues M. Goureau) to the last 
day that I kept it, every time that I visited it and gave the same slight whistle 
it assumed its defensive attitude, and did not quit it till it judged the danger 
past.” (Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, x. bull, xviii.) 
