At 8.15 she returned to the honey almost straight. 8.21, she flew again to the closed window, and apparently could not find her way; so at 8.35 I put her out again. It seems obvious from this that wasps have a sense of direction, and do not find their way merely by sight.
At 8.50 back to honey, and 8.54 again to wrong window; but finding it closed, she took two or three turns round the room, and then flew out through the open window.
At 9.24 back to the honey; and 9.27 away, first, however, paying a visit to the wrong window, but without alighting.
At 9.36 back to the honey, and 9.39 away, but, as before, going first to wrong window.
But that the sense of direction is of much service to bees in finding the locality of their hives seems to be indicated by the following observation thus narrated, on the authority of the authors themselves, by Messrs. Kirby and Spence:—
In vain, during my stay at St. Nicholas, I sallied out at every outlet to try to gain some idea of the extent and form of the town. Trees, trees, trees, still met me, and intercepted the view in every direction; and I defy any inhabitant bee of this rural metropolis, after once quitting its hive, ever to gain a glimpse of it again until nearly perpendicularly over it. The bees, therefore, . . . . must be led to their abodes by instinct, &c.
The observation, however, is not so conclusive as its authors suppose; for there is nothing to show that the bees did not take note of particular objects on their accustomed routes, and so learn these routes by stages. It would be worth while in this connection to try the effect of hooding the eyes of a bee, or, if this were deemed too disturbing an experiment, removing the hive bodily to a distance from its accustomed site, and observing whether the bees start away boldly as before for long flights, or learn their new routes by stages.
In this connection I may quote the following.
Mr. John Topham, of Marlborough House, Torquay, writing to 'Nature,'[46] says:—