ployed, deceived by the very sense given them by Providence to direct their instinct*. Upon the seabeach, we have often been struck with the almost instantaneous appearance of clouds of stercorarious flies attracted by a recent horse-dropping, though not one had been in sight an instant before'; and many of these we have observed trooping on towards the place of rendezvous, even in the face of the strong breeze which had wafted to them the intelligence that put them in motion. We once observed a pair of the burying beetles (Necrophorus sepultor, DE JEAN) in Copenhagen fields, flying at the height of about twenty feet from the ground; when they suddenly descended, and crept under the body of a dead frog,

hid amongst the grass, though this was so dried up with the extreme heat of the weather (1825) that we could perceive little or no smell, even when close to the place, and it was in the forenoon, when the sun was bright and powerful,—a time when scents are much less diffusable than in the cool of a dewy evening*. Few circumstances, we think, could more strikingly illustrate the acuteness of smell in these useful insects.

swarm,

In bees, the odour of honey produces the most obvious influence, Mr. John Hunter mentions that he has seen great commotion produced in a recent in wet weather, when he supposed the bees to have been hungry, by placing honey on the floor of a glass hive, which gave him a good opportunity of observing their proceedings. All of them appeared to be eagerly on the scent, and even those which were weak and hardly able to crawl, threw out their tongues as far as possible to get at the honey †. The elder Huber instituted some experiments still more interesting.

"In order," he says, "to ascertain whether the appearance of the flowers or the odour of the honey apprises bees of its presence, we placed honey in a window, near a hive, where the shutters, almost close, still permitted them to pass if they wished. Within a quarter of an hour four bees and a butterfly had insinuated themselves, and we found them feeding thereon. For the purpose of a still more accurate experiment, I had four boxes, different in size, shape, and colour, made with small card shutters, corresponding to apertures in the covering. Honey being put into them, they were placed at the distance of two hundred paces from my apiary. In half an hour bees were seen trooping thither, and by carefully tra* J. R.

Phil. Trans.

versing the boxes, they soon discovered the openings through which they might introduce their bodies, and, pressing against the valves, reached the honey. Their extreme delicacy of smelling is hence most obvious, for not only was the honey quite concealed from view, but its very effluvia, from being purposely covered and disguised, could not be much diffused.

"It is worthy of remark that some flowers have a structure resembling the valves in the experiment. The honey-vessel of several species is situated at the bottom of a tube, enclosed or concealed among the petals; yet, in spite of this concealment, the bee finds it out, though its instinct, less refined than that of the humble-bee (Bombus), affords fewer resources. The latter, when unable to penetrate the flowers by their natural cavity, drills an aperture at the base of the tube, through which it insinuates its sucker into the place where nature has placed the reservoir of honey. By means of this stratagem, and favoured by the length of its sucker, the humble-bee can obtain honey which the hive-bee could reach with great difficulty, if at all*."

We have frequently observed with much interest the method taken by various species of bees to open the operculated flower of the common snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus). Resting upon the lower lip of the flower, the insect insinuates its tongue between the upper lip and the valve, and then thrusting in its head, acts with it as a wedge to force the shut edges asunder. In this manner it speedily accomplishes an entrance, and the flower shuts over it with a snap; hence, perhaps, the popular name. When the bee has obtained the honey at the bottom of the flower, it makes its exit in the same way as it entered. Contrary to what we understand Huber to affirm *Huber on Bees, p. 261.

Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus), and bees entering the flowers. in the above quotation, we have, in some hundreds of instances, seen the hive-bee open these flowers as dexterously as the humble-bees, and the latter uniformly opened the spring valve of the flower, and never attempted a perforation at the bottom *. Our opinion seems to be partly corroborated by what is stated by Kirby and Spence. "Several flowers,? say they, "that produce much honey, the bees pass

* J. R.

F

by, in some instances from inability to get at it. Thus, for this reason probably, they do not attempt those of the trumpet honey-suckle, which, if separated from the germen after they are open, will yield two or three drops of the purest nectar; so that, were this shrub cultivated with that view, much honey in its original state might be obtained from a small number of plants*." Were Huber's remarks correct, this is the very flower which the humble-bees would select to perforate. The humming-bird moth (Ma

suckle (Caprifolium sempervirens),

*Inte. ii, 180,