220 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
heard distinctly the whole common throngh, from the Money- 
dells, to my avenue gate. 
Any person would suppose that a large sw^arm of bees was in 
motion, and playing about over his head. This noise was heard 
last w^eek, on June 28th. 
" Eesounds the living surface of the ground, 
Nor undelightfu] is the ceaseless hum 
To him who muses ... at noon." 
" Thick in yon stream of light a thousand ways, 
Upward and downward, thwarting and convolved. 
The quivering nations sport." 
This wild and fancifal assertion will hardly be admitted by 
the philosophers of these days ; especially as they all now seem 
agreed that insects are not furnished with any organs of hearing 
at all. But if it should be urged, that though they cannot hear, 
yet perhaps they may feel the repercussion of sounds, I grant it 
is possible they may. Yet that these impressions are distaste- 
ful or hurtful, I deny, because bees, in good summers, thrive well 
in my outlet, where the echoes are very strong : for this village 
is another Anathoth, a place of responses or echoes. Besides, it 
does not appear from experiment that bees are in any way capable 
of being affected by sounds : for I have often tried my own with 
a large speaking-trumpet held close to their hives, and with such 
an exertion of voice as would have hailed a ship at the distance 
of a mile, and still these insects pursued their various employ- 
ments undisturbed, and without showing the least sensibility 
or resentment. 
Some time since its discovery this echo is become totally 
silent, though the object, or hop-kiln, remains : nor is there any 
mystery in this defect ; for the field between is planted as a 
hop-garden, and the voice of the speaker is totally absorbed and 
lost among the poles and entangled foliage of the hops. And 
when the poles are removed in autumn the disappointment is 
the same ; because a tall quick-set hedge, nurtured up for the 
purpose of shelter to the hop-ground, interrupts the repercussion 
of the voice : so that till those obstructions are removed no more 
r»f its garrulity can be expected. 
