Going to a field or wood at a distance from tame bees, with their box of honey they gather up from the flowers and imprison one or more bees, and after they have become sufficiently gorged, let them out to return to their home with their easily gotten load. Waiting patiently a longer or shorter time, according to the distance of the bee-tree, the hunter scarcely ever fails to see the bee or bees return accompanied with other bees, which are in like manner imprisoned till they in turn are filled, when one or more are let out at places distant from each other, and the direction in each case in which the bee flies noted, and thus, by a kind of triangulation, the position of the bee-tree proximately ascertained. Those who have stored honey in their houses understand very well how important it is to prevent a single bee from discovering its location. Such discovery is sure to be followed by a general onslaught from the hive unless all means of access is prevented. It is possible that our American are more intelligent than European bees, but hardly probable; and I certainly shall not ask an Englishman to admit it. Those in America who are in the habit of playing first, second, and third fiddle to instinct will probably attribute this seeming intelligence to that principle. According to De Fravière, bees have a number of different notes or tones which they emit from the stigmata of the thorax and abdomen, and by which they communicate information. He says:-- As soon as a bee arrives with important news, it is at once surrounded, emits two or three shrill notes, and taps a comrade with its long, flexible, and very slender feelers, or antennæ. The friend passes on the news in similar fashion, and the intelligence soon traverses the whole hive. If it is of an agreeable kind--if, for instance, it concerns the discovery of a store of sugar or of honey, or of a flowering meadow--all remains orderly. But, on the other hand, great excitement arises if the news presages some threatened danger, or if strange animals are threatening invasion of the hive. It seems that such intelligence is conveyed first to the queen, as the most important person in the state.