48 
THE SENSES OF BEES. 
the guards, carefully avoiding their flexible organs, 
as if aware that its safety depended on its caution.”* 
Taste. In Bees, Taste appears, on a slight view, 
to differ most materially from that sense in man ; 
and because w'ith all their eager fondness for the 
rich nectar of flowers, they are frequently detected 
lapping the impure fluid from corrupted marshes, it 
has been hastily concluded, that their sense of Taste 
is very defective. Huber thought it the least perfect 
of the Bee-senses, and instances their gathering 
honey even from poisonous flowers, and regaling 
themselves with foetid liquids. Now, with deference 
to this distinguished observer, it may be permitted, 
perhaps, to defend our favourites from so injurious 
an imputation. We have prima facie evidence of 
the delicacy of their taste in their eager activity in 
collecting their delicious stores of honey secreted by 
the most fragrant flowers ; and such is their ardour 
in these operations, that they defy the elements when 
the honey-season is at its height, and, laying aside 
their usual fears of had weather, boldly encounter 
wind and rain to get at their favourite fluid. Huber 
acknowledges, that when “ the lime-tree and black 
grain blossom, they brave the rain, depart before sun- 
rise, and return later than ordinary. But their activity 
relaxes after the flowers have faded; and when the 
enamel adorning the meadows has fallen under the 
scythe, the Bees remain in their dwelling, however 
brilliant the sunshine." Wherefore have they not. 
* Huber, 284. 
