THE SENSES OF BEES. 
45 
mata or coronetted eyes, arranged triangularly on its 
centre, between the antenna;. That these little specks 
are, in reality, organs of vision, has been made appa- 
rent from accurate experiments, in which, when the 
reticulated eyes w r ere blindfolded, the insect was evi- 
dently not deprived of sight, though the direction of 
its flight, being vertical, seemed to prove that the 
stemmata were adapted only or chiefly to upward 
vision. This additional organ must, doubtless, add 
considerably to its power of sight, though, probably, 
its aid may he confined chiefly to the obscure recesses 
of the hive. As the internal operations of the insect 
in the honey season are carried on during the night as 
well as the day, the coronet-eyes may, as Reaumur 
conjectures, serve to it the purpose of a microscope. 
As to the general power of vision in the Bee, its 
organs appear better adapted to distant objects than 
to such as are close at hand. When returning loaded 
from the fields, it flies with unerring certainty, and 
distinguishes at once its own domicile in the midst of 
a crowded apiary. Yet every person who has at all 
made this insect the subject of observation, must have 
seen itoften at a loss, in returning to its hive to find the 
entrance, especially if its habitation has been shifted 
ever so little from its former station ; nay, if, without 
moving the hive, the entrance has been turned round 
a single inch from its former position, the Bee flies 
with unerring precision to that point on the alighting 
hoard where the door formerly stood, and frequently, 
after many fruitless attempts to find the entrance, it 
is forced to rise again into the air, with a view, we 
