Show ii homing INSTINCT OF BEES their remarkable powers demons demon s by most thorough series of experiments henri fabre the naturalist tells tella tu lu the fortnightly review a characters tic story about charlea charle s darwin and himself darwin wanted to explain tho the homing instinct 0 of bees and induced fab fahre re to begin a series ol of I 1 experiments peri perl ments with that purpose in view vie A regular plan of 0 campaign was I 1 drawn up marked bees were placed in a dark box and carried away from the hive in the opposite direction from that in which they were finally liberated the box was repeatedly turned about so that the inmates would lose all sense of at direction every possible means was taken to render useless any known or conceivable method of obtaining ones bearings the boea bees were even placed within an induction coll coil in the effort to contuse confuse them the result of a long and elaborate series of tests was nil so far as any explanation of the homing power was concerned in every case from 30 to 40 percent per cent of them fount found their way home without apparent trouble no matter how confusing con the trip away from home had been made tho the story la Is characteristic because it illustrates the thorough way in which the author of the or origin agin of species Sp eclea attacked all his problems ile he was not one to merely opine prettily ind probably and let it go at that lie he put everything to the test of experiment and when the answer came out wrong or come out at all ho he scrapped the hypothesis as a matter of course instead of at trying to explain exola in away its failure |