with light hairs, whilst the old ones have red hairs, notched and ragged wings, and are paler and more shrunk in their bodies. The cases which I have related, and others of a similar kind, have led to the erroneous opinion that bees are a long-lived race. But this, as DR. EVANS has observed, is just as wise as if a stranger, contemplating a populous city, and personally unacquainted with its inhabitants, should on paying it a second visit, many years afterwards, and finding it equally populous, imagine that it was peopled by the same individuals, not one of whom might be then alive. "Such strangers are we to the honied hive, where, however quickly its generations may have passed away, the same face is presented to the beholder." "The race and realm from age to age remain, And time but lengthens with new links the chain." The usual term of the male's existence is two or three months only ;-I say the usual term, for his life is always cut off by violence, when no peculiar circumstances arise to render his existence any longer useful. Such circumstances having arisen, as has been before observed, (page 44,) he may be kept alive a much longer period, for a year at least, but how much longer has not as yet been ascertained. With respect to the queen, by comparing what has been said above, as to insects not dying till their eggs are all matured, with what has been stated in page 31 of a single sexual union serving to impregnate all the eggs laid for the two succeeding years, it would appear that the period of her existence could not, in general, be less than two years; and HUBER has proved very satisfactorily, that this is the fact: indeed he states that he has known a queen live for five years. FEBURIER suspects that, like the males, the queens are destroyed by the labourers, when they have fulfilled their destination. The only ground of this opinion, however, appears to be his having witnessed an attack made upon a queen by six labourers, from whom he with difficulty rescued her. MESSRS. KIRBY and SPENCE, in like manner, seem to think it not improbable that when the workers become too old to be useful to the community, they are either killed or expelled the society. Vide page 7. Reaumur also throws out a hint to the same purpose. The length of a working bee's life has not yet been ascertained; but the general opinion is that it is short-lived. BUTLER says that "the bee is but little more than a year's bird ;" and some think the period of its existence shorter still. "The bees of the present year," says BUTLER, "will retain their vigour and youthful appearance till (Gemini), about the 21st of May in the following year, when they begin to decline, and from (Cancer to Leo) June 21st to August 21st, the ground in front of the apiary may be seen strewed with them, some dead, some dying, and a few alive but incapable of rising again, and by (Libra) 22d September, scarcely an old bee will be left." CHAPTER XXXII. SENSES OF BEES. IN considering the phænomena of insect sensation, little advantage can be derived from analogy ; the physiology of the senses of bees, and other insects, is therefore but imperfectly understood. Still they must have credit for the possession of senses, however differently modified from those of man. Some of their senses may open avenues to knowledge, with which he must ever remain unacquainted. Arts which he is obliged to attain by long labour and great diligence, they seem to derive from nature, through the medium no doubt of organs so exquisitely fine, as to elude not only his search, but even his conception. Of all the senses of bees, none appears to be so acute as that of SMELL. It is this which, in all probability, enables them to distinguish, not only individuals of their own species, but one human being from another; and also to discover honey-dews and honey-bearing flowers, at a very considerable distance; (honey of all odorous substances, being the most attractive to them:) it may tend likewise to cause that neatness which they observe in themselves and in their habitations. An experiment, made by HUBER, demonstrates that they possess the faculty of smell. He placed vessels of honey in boxes perforated with very small holes, to allow the odorous effluvia to escape, but not of sufficient size to permit a sight of the honey, when the bees came directly to the boxes. He also tried this experiment with the addition of small card valves, which the bees, after examining the boxes all round, contrived to raise up, that they might get at the honey. MR. HUNTER states, that he has seen great commotion produced in a recent swarm in wet weather, when he supposes the bees to have been hungry, by placing honey on the floor of the hive. It was a glass hive, which afforded him a good opportunity of observing their proceedings, and he says that all of them appeared to be upon the scent: even those that were weak and hardly able to crawl, threw out the proboscis as far as possible, to get at the honey, which he thinks must have arisen from their smelling and not from their seeing it. This presumed nicety of their smell should induce a carefulness that no offensive odours be near an apiary. The notorious frequenting, by bees, of the depositories of urine and the dung of animals, might seem to render such carefulness futile: but upon this subject I have written in a former chapter, and have since had the pleasure of seeing my opinion confirmed by that of MESSRS. KIRBY and SPENCE.-Bees appear to have an |