192 
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 
their wings in this way for five- and -twenty minutes. When 
they are tired they are relieved by others. According to Jesse, 
the bees in very hot weather, in spite of all their efforts, are 
unable to sufficiently lower the temperature, and prevent the 
melting of some of the wax ; they then get into a condition of 
great excitement, and it is dangerous to approach them. In such 
a case they also try to mend matters by a number leaving the 
hive and settling in large masses on its surface, so as to protect 
it as much as possible from the scorching rays of the sun. 
Although the described plan of ventilation is remarkable 
enough in itself, it is yet more remarkable in that it is clearly 
only the result of bee-keeping, and is evoked by this misfortune. 
For there could be no need of such ventilation for bees in a 
state of nature, whose dwellings in hollow trees and clefts of 
rocks leave nothing to be desired as to roominess and airiness, 
while in the narrow artificial hive this need at once comes out 
strongly. In fact, the fanning of the bees almost entirely ceased 
when Huber brought them into large hives five feet high, in 
which there was plenty of air. It follows, therefore, tha/t the 
fanning and ventilating can have absolutely nothing to do with 
an inborn tendency or instinct, but have been gradually evoked 
by necessity, thought, and experience. 
As the following observation on the cautious sagacity 
of wasps is, so far as I am aware, new, and as it certainly 
does not admit of mal-observation, I introduce it on the 
authority of a correspondent, the Eev. Mr. J. W. Mossman, 
who writes from Tarrington Rectory, Wragby. He found 
an apple in his orchard which had fallen from a tree in 
apparently good condition ; but on taking it up observed 
that it was little more than a shell filled with wasps. 
(Jiving the apple a shake, he saw a wasp slowly emerging 
from a single small aperture in the rind : — 
This aperture was sufficient, and only just sufficient, to admit 
of the i gress or egress of a single wasp. The circumstance 
which struck me as very remarkable was this — that the wasp 
did not make its way through the aperture with its head first, 
as I should have expected, but with its tail, darting out its 
sting to its utmost extent, and brandishing it furiously. In this 
manner it came out of the apple backwards. Then, finding itself 
in the open air upon the outer surface of the apple, it turned 
round, and without any attempt to molest me, flew off in the 
usual way. The moment this first wasp had emerged, the sting 
