Hail,Memory, hail! thy universal reignGuards the least link of Being's glorious chain.
Hail,Memory, hail! thy universal reignGuards the least link of Being's glorious chain.
In the elegant lines in which this couplet occurs[825],which were pointed out to me by my friend Dr. Alderson of Hull, Mr. Rogers supposes the bee to be conducted to its hive by retracing the scents of the various flowers which it has visited: but this idea is more poetical than accurate, bees, as before observed[826], flying straight to their hives from great distances. Here, as I have more than once had occasion to remark in similar instances, we have to regret the want of more correct entomological information in the poet, who might have employed with as much effect, the real fact of bees distinguishing their own hives out of numbers near them, when conducted to the spot by instinct. This recognition of home seems clearly the result of memory; and it is remarkable that bees appear to recollect their own hive rather from its situation, than from any observations on the hive itself[827]: just as a man is guided to his house from his memory of its position relative to otherbuildings or objects, without its being necessary for him even to cast a look at it. If, after quitting my house in a morning, it were to be lifted out of its site in the street by enchantment, and replaced by another with a similar entrance, I should probably, even in the day time, enter it, without being struck by the change; and bees, if during their absence their old hive be taken away, and a similar one set in its place, enter this last, and if it be provided with brood comb contentedly take up their abode in it, never troubling themselves to inquire what has become of the identical habitation which they left in the morning, and with the inhabitants of which, if it be removed to fifty paces distance, they never resume their connexion[828].
If, pursuing my illustration, you should object that no man would thus contentedly sit down in a new house without searching after the old one, you must bear in mind that I am not aiming to show that bees have as precise a memory as ours, but only that they are endowed with some portion of this faculty, which I think the above fact proves. Should you view it in a different light, you will not deny the force of others that have already been stated in the course of our correspondence: such as the mutual greetings of ants of the same society when brought together after a separation of four months[829]; and the return of a party of bees in spring to a window where in the preceding autumn they had regaled on honey, though none of this substance had been again placed there[830].
But the most striking fact evincing the memory of these last-mentioned insects has been communicated to me by my intelligent friend Mr. William Stickney, of Ridgemont, Holderness. About twenty years ago, a swarm from one of this gentleman's hives took possession of an opening beneath the tiles of his house, whence, after remaining a few hours, they were dislodged and hived. For many subsequent years, when the hives descended from this stock were about to swarm, a considerable party of scouts were observed for a few days before to be reconnoitring about the old hole under the tiles; and Mr. Stickney is persuaded, that if suffered they would have established themselves there. He is certain that for eight years successively the descendants of the very stock that first took possession of the hole frequented it as above stated, andnotthose of any other swarms; having constantly noticed them, and ascertained that they were bees from the original hive by powdering them while about the tiles with yellow ochre, and watching their return. And even at the present time there are still seen every swarming season about the tiles, bees, which Mr. Stickney has no doubt are descendants from the original stock.
Had Dr. Darwin been acquainted with this fact, he would have adduced it as proving that insects can convey traditionary information from one generation to another; and at the first glance the circumstance of the descendants of the same stock retaining a knowledge of the same fact for twenty years, during which period there must have been as many generations of bees, would seem to warrant the inference. But as it is more probable that the party of surveying scouts of thefirst generation was the next year accompanied by others of a second, who in like manner conducted their brethren of the third, and these last again others of the fourth generation, and so on,—I draw no other conclusion from it than that bees are endowed with memory, which I think it proves most satisfactorily.
I am, &c.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
Plate VPlate V
Plate V
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