Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/504

488  Their taste is, perhaps, the most imperfect of their senses. They use scarcely any discrimination in the collection of honey from different flowers. They are not repelled by the scent or flavour of such as are extremely offensive to our organs, and scruple not to derive supplies from such as are highly poisonous. In some districts in America it is well known that honey acquires in this way very dele terious properties. The qualities of honey are observed to vary much according to the particular situation from which it is obtained. In their selection of flowers they are guided by the quantity of honey they expect to meet with, and in no respect by its quality. That gathered from ivy blossoms in England is sometimes so bitter and nauseous as to be useless for our eating, although the bees consume it readily. But their smell must be sufficiently acute to enable them to discover honey at great distances, and in concealed situations direct experiment has indeed proved this to be the case. Huber found that they proceeded immediately towards boxes which contained honey con cealed from view ; and such, in fact, is the situation of the fluid of the nectaries in flowers. Some odours, and especially all kinds of smoke, are highly obnoxious to them ; and this is also the case with ammonia and other volatile chemical agents, upon receiving the impression of which they immediately set about ventilating themselves in the usual manner. The odour of the poison of their sting produces similar effects, exciting them to immediate rage and hostility. It has been observed that bees recognize the presence of a stranger in their hive by the smell ; and in joining two stocks into one, if the bees are united without precautions, a battle will probably ensue. To obviate this bee-keepers are in the practice of strongly scenting both families by means of peppermint, tobacco smoke, or other strong- smelling agent; this overpowering the bees natural scent, they are unable to distinguish their own party from the intruders, and peace is insured. The sense of vision does not appear to aid them, for where Ligurians are added to common black bees the effect is the same, although in colour the two varieties are very different. In the introduction of an alien queen to a stock it is also usual to imprison the new sovereign within the hive which she is to rule until she has acquired the peculiar scent of her future subjects, who will then make no objections to her, while had she been at once set at liberty she would probably have met her death. Although it is clear that insects possess the power of smell, yet the particular organ of this sense has never been accurately ascertained, and the opinions of naturalists have been much divided on the subject. These opinions have been supported more by arguments drawn from the analogy of what happens in other classes of animals than by direct experiment on insects themselves. We know that in all animals respiring by means of lungs, the organs of smell are placed at the entrance of the air-passages; and it has often been concluded that in like manner the stigmata, or the orifices of the air-tubes, are the seat of this sense in insects. Huber s opinion was that in the bee this sense resides in the mouth itself, or in its immediate vicinity. Here, indeed, would be its proper station if this faculty be intended, as we may reasonably suppose it to be, to apprise the individual of the qualities of the food prior to its being eaten. When the mouth of a bee was plugged up with paste, which was allowed to dry before the insect was set at liberty, it remained quite insensible to the same odours to which it had before manifested the strongest repugnance.  It is generally supposed that bees possess the sense of hearing. The common practice of making a loud noise by drums and kettles in order to attract a swarm is founded on this supposition. But the evidence is by no means conclusive, for we find that they are not disturbed by a loud clap of thunder, or by the report of a gun. or by any other noise that may happen to arise round them. Sir John Lubbock, who has made a great many observations in this direction, says that he could never find them take notice of any sound he made even when it was close to them. He tried them with a violin, dog whistle, shrill pipe, and set of tuning forks, also by shouting, &c., close to their heads, but in spite of his utmost efforts the bees took no notice, not even by a twitch of the antennae show ing they heard. It is, however, certain that they are capable of emitting a variety of sounds which appear expressive of anger, fear, satisfaction, and other passions ; and it would seem that they are even capable of communi cating certain emotions to one another in this manner. Huber observed that the young queens not yet liberated from their cocoons sent forth a peculiar piping sound, and this is answered by the old queen, who apparently must hear the note of her aspiring rival. A certain cry or humming noise from the queen will strike with sudden consternation all the bees in the hive, and they remain for a considerable time motionless and stupified. Hunter has noticed a number of modulations of sound emitted by bees under different circumstances, and has instituted an inquiry concerning the means employed by them in producing these sounds ; for an account of this see his paper in the Philosophical Trans actions.

If the function of sensation in insects be involved in doubt and obscurity, the knowledge of those more interior faculties, which are the springs of voluntary action, is hid in still deeper mystery. Buffon refuses to allow bees any portion of intelligence, and contends that the actions we behold, however admirably they are directed to certain ends, are in fact merely the results of their peculiar mechanism. Other philosophers, such as Reaumur and Brougham (Works, vol. vi.), have gone into the opposite extreme, and have considered them as endued with extra ordinary wisdom and foresight, as animated by a disin terested patriotism, and as uniting a variety of moral and intellectual qualities of a higher order. The truth, no doubt, lies between these overstrained opinions ; but it is nevertheless extremely difficult to decide in what degree these respective principles operate in the production of the effects we witness. The term instinct should properly be regarded, not as denoting a particular and definite principle of action, whose operation we can anticipate in any new or untried combination of circumstances, but as expressive of our inability to refer the phenomena we contemplate to any previously known principle. Thus the actions which an animal performs in obedience to the calls of appetite are not properly said to be instinctive ; nor can the term be applied to actions which are the consequence of acquired knowledge, and of which the object is with certainty fore seen by the agent. But when an animal acts apparently under a blind impulse, and produces effects useful to itself or to the species, which effects it could not have previously contemplated as resulting from those actions, it is then customary to say that it is under the guidance of instinct, that is, of some unknown principle of action. It will be proper, therefore, to keep this distinction in view in judging of the voluntary actions of the lower animals. In no department of natural history is it more necessary to be aware of the proper import of the term instinct, than in studying the phenomena presented by the bee ; for no where is it more difficult to discriminate between the regular operation of implanted motives and the result of acquired knowledge and habits. The most striking feature of their history, and the one which apparently lays the foundation for those extraordinary qualities which raise them above 