Mr. Knight on the Economy of Bees . 239 
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parties be scarcely consistent with the limitations generally 
supposed to be fixed by nature to the instinctive powers of the 
brute creation. 
Brutes have evidently language ; but it is a language of 
passion only, and not of ideas. They express to each other 
sentiments of love, of fear, and of anger ; but they appear to 
be wholly incapable of transmitting to each other any ideas 
they have received from the impression of external objects. 
They convey to other animals of their species, on the ap- 
proach of an enemy, a sentiment of danger; but they appear 
wholly incapable of communicating what the enemy is, or the 
kind of danger apprehended. A language of more extensive 
use seems, from the preceding circumstances, to have been 
given to bees; and if it be not, in some degree, a language of 
ideas, it appears to be something very similar. 
When a swarm of bees issue from the parent hive, they 
generally soon settle on some neighbouring bush or tree ; 
and as in this situation they are generally not at all defended 
from rain or cold, it is often inferred that they are less amply 
gifted with those instinctive powers, that direct to self-preser- 
vation, than many other animals. But their object in settling 
soon after they leave the hive is apparently nothing more than 
to collect their numbers ; and they have generally, I believe al- 
ways, another place to which they intend subsequently to go : 
and if the situation they select be not perfectly adapted to secure 
them from injuries, it is probably, in almost all instances, the 
best they can discover. For 1 have very often observed that 
when one of my hives was nearly ready to swarm, one of the hol- 
low trees I have mentioned (and generally that best adapted for 
the accommodation of a swarm) was every day occupied by 
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