PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



153 



That contained in the blossom of many plants is quite as much 

 concealed, yet the acuteness 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 certainty 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 following curious account, 

 given in the Philosophical Transactions for 1721, of the me- 

 thod practised in New England 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 at- 

 tack 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 angles with 

 its course a few hundred yards, and letting a second fly, ob- 

 serves its course by his pocket-compass, and the point where 

 the two courses intersect is that where the nest is situated. 1 



The natural station of bees is in the cavities of decayed 

 trees ; such trees, Mr. Knight tells us, they will discover in 

 the closest recesses, and at an extraordinary distance from 

 the hive; in one instance it was a mile: and at swarming, 

 they sometimes are inclined to settle in such cavities. After 

 the discovery of one, from twenty to fifty, who are a kind of 

 scouts, may be found examining and keeping possession of it. 

 They seem to explore every part of it and of the tree with the 

 greatest attention, even surveying the dead knots and the 

 like. 2 When a hive stands unemployed, a swarm will also 

 sometimes send scouts to take possession of it. 



How long our little active creatures repose before they 

 take a second excursion I cannot precisely say. In a hive the 

 greatest part of the inhabitants generally appear in repose, 

 lying together, says Reaumur, but this probably for a short 

 time. Huber tells us, that bees may always be observed in a 

 hive with the head and thorax inserted into cells that contain 



1 xxxi. 148. 



2 Knight in Philos. Trans, for 1807, 237. Marshall, Agricult. of Norfolk. 



