Marvels of the Universe 1023 
Photo by} [Tickner Edwardes. 
LOCKING ARRANGEMENT OF A BEE’S WINGS. 
The Bee has two wings on each side, but in flight they lock together, forming one continuous plane. This junction is 
effected by a series of smal! hooks on the under wing which engage with a flange on the upper wing. The photograph shows 
part of the wings on the left side with their edges so joined. 
dozen distinct kinds of delicate instruments, each of which is obviously the organ of a different: 
sense. 
There are simple hairs in abundance, evidently organs of touch. Other hairs are short and 
stunted, ringed at their base, and connected with a nerve-fibre. Others again are hollow, their 
shafts enclosing the end of a nerve. There are curiously-shaped pits with deeper conical depressions 
beneath, and other pits closed with delicate membranes like drum-heads, within each of which a 
nerve-end stands up free. 
Some of these intricate organs on the bee’s antenne are manifestly feeling implements, but as 
to the uses of the others it is possible only to hazarda guess. The open pits are conceivably organs of 
smell, and those covered in by membranes are probably auditory in function. The hollow bristles, 
like Pierrot’s hats, enclosing extended nerve-fibres, have never yet been satisfactorily accounted 
for. But to assume that a bee has only five senses like ourselves, is to assume altogether too much. 
In all probability she receives impressions by means of these subtly-made antennal organs, of the 
nature of which we can form no idea. 
The compound eyes of the honey-bee, each consisting of thousands of separate lenses, have been 
often described. They are for distant vision, and are employed by the bee in her long journeys 
to and from the hive. But it is not generally known that, for use at close quarters, and especially 
in the gloom of the hive-interior, she has three other and simple eyes set in a triangle upon her 
forehead. 
Under a strong glass these eyes show up big, dark, and lustrous, with all the solemn wisdom 
of an owl’s. They must have extraordinary powers of appreciating very faint rays of ight. Even 
in the daytime the interior of a hive must be plunged in what would be to us almost total darkness ; 
