the same effect; but when the mouths of several bees were stopped with paste, no such consequences ensued, on the contrary they traversed the impregnated pencils without being at all annoyed by them; even honey did not attract them. All these circumstances tend to prove that the site of smelling is in or near the mouth.--This subject will be resumed in Chap. XXXII. +Organs of Respiration.+ The respiration of bees is performed through several little orifices, called _stigmata_, _spiracles_, or _breathing pores_, situated in the sides of their bodies, behind their wings. +Reaumur+ was of opinion that inspiration was performed through the spiracles, and expiration through the mouth; but +Bonnet+ proved satisfactorily that neither inspiration nor expiration takes place through the mouth. The spiracles are connected with a system of air-vessels called _tracheæ_, ramifying through every part of the frame, and serving the purpose of lungs. From the absence of lungs, +Aristotle+ and the ancients in general thought that insects did not breathe. +Pliny+ may perhaps be excepted, for he has observed that dipping bees in honey or oil deprives them of life;--this immersion stops up the mouths of the spiracles. Modern physiologists have however incontestibly proved that they do breathe. "Life and flame," says +Cuvier+, "have this in common, that neither the one nor the other can subsist without air; all living beings, from man to the most minute vegetable, perish when they are utterly deprived of that fluid." +Huber+ detected the existence of the stigmata or breathing pores, by immersing different portions of a bee in water, and finally by total immersion, upon which he observed that bubbles of air attached themselves for some time to the orifices of the stigmata, which alternately appeared and receded, till their increased bulk enabled them to overcome the resistance of inspiration and rise to the surface. These respiratory organs escaped the observation of +Swammerdam+. Air is equally necessary to insects in the egg state: +Spallanzani+ found that their eggs could not be hatched in small close vessels, though all other circumstances were favourable to a development. The eggs of the hive-bee, whilst in the ovaries, have a net-work of air-vessels spread over their surfaces;--these were discovered by Swammerdam: from analogy, we may reasonably conclude, that such a provision obtains generally.