The closeness of a hive, and its having no direct current of air through it, may favour a belief that bees can exist in any atmosphere, however vitiated, and may seem also to confirm the opinion of the ancients, that they have no particular system of respiratory organs. But +M. Huber+ and +Son+ have proved that they breathe like other animals, that they are speedily deprived of life, if the process of respiration be arrested; so delicate indeed is their organization, that they detect the smallest deterioration in the atmosphere of their hives, and immediately adopt measures to restore to this element the degree of purity essential to respiration: from some eudiometrical experiments, it has been ascertained that the air of a well stocked hive is as pure as that by which it is surrounded. Still neither wax nor pollen favours the generation of oxygen gas, nor have bees the faculty of generating it; for when very closely shut up, they perish in a few hours. The writers just referred to, discovered that the bees, by uniting the two wings of each side, by means of the small marginal hooks with which they are provided, so as to make them present the largest possible surface to the air, were capable of striking it with considerable force, and that this force was increased by the wings forming a slight concavity. The wings arranged in this manner, are put into a violent vibratory motion by the bees appointed to the office of ventilators, and produce what we call a draught of air. _Ventilation_ is thus systematically accomplished. A certain portion of ventilating bees is stationed in files at the entrance of the hive, with their heads turned inwards; another and a larger party, in files also, stands a considerable way in the interior, with their heads towards the entrance: thus both these parties cooperate, in producing a current of air in the same direction, and are so arranged as not to interrupt the passage of their fellow-citizens, moving in and out. As this hard duty has no intermission during the day, nor in hot weather during the night, and must necessarily occasion fatigue, one set of ventilators is considerately relieved in about twenty-five minutes, by another set of fresh bees. Under particular circumstances the number of ventilating bees is considerably increased. "When the air," says +Huber+, "was not renewed in the manner desirable, we have seen all vibrating their wings at once, though this never occurs in the natural state, when the vibrations of a few are sufficient for ventilation." Although this fanning motion of the wings is so rapid as to render them almost indistinguishable, yet they may be observed to describe an arc of 90°. The sagacious bees remind me of a method which is sometimes adopted of renewing the air of a room, called pumping; some person moves the door backward and forward so rapidly as to cause a thorough agitation of the confined air, and the introduction of a fresh unvitiated atmosphere. "When they are engaged in