Mr. Knight on the Economy of Bees. 241 
given by nature. The peculiarities of character can therefore 
be traced to no other source than the acquired habits of the 
parents, which are inherited by the offspring, and become what 
I shall call instinctive hereditary propensities. These pro- 
pensities, or modifications of the natural instinctive powers of 
animals, are capable of endless variation and change ; and 
hence their habits soon become adapted to different countries 
and different states of domestication, the acquired habits of the 
parents being transferred hereditarily to the offspring. Bees, 
like other animals, are probably susceptible of these changes 
of habit, and thence, when accustomed through many gene- 
rations to the hive, in a country which does not afford hollow 
trees, or other habitations adapted to their purpose, they may 
become more dependent on man, and rely on his care wholly 
for an habitation ; but in situations where the cavities of trees 
present to them the means of providing for themselves, I have 
found that they will discover such trees in the closest recesses 
of the woods, and at an extraordinary distance from their hives ; 
and that they will keep possession of such cavities in the man- 
ner I have stated : and I am confident that, under such circum- 
stances, a swarm never issues from the parent hive, without 
having previously selected some such place to retire to. 
It has been remarked by Mr. John Hunter, that the 
matter which bees carry on their thighs is the farina of plants 
with which they feed their young, and not the substance 
with which they make their combs ; and his statement is, I 
believe, perfectly correct : but I have observed, that they will 
also carry other things on their thighs. I frequently covered 
the decorticated parts of trees, on which I was making experi- 
ments, with a cement composed of bees- wax and turpentine ; 
