The extreme sensitiveness of smell in bees is evinced by their promptitude in resenting an injury inflicted on any of their community. In hiving, or performing any other operation upon them, great caution should therefore be observed, lest any of them be trodden upon or crushed to death. It may be thought that this promptitude to resent the injury I have here mentioned, may not proceed from the acuteness of their smell, but from an effect produced upon some other organ of sense. I infer that it proceeds from the former, on account of their being so quickly roused to anger from a state of tranquillity, by having a fresh envenomed sting and its appendages presented before the entrance of their dwelling. This experiment, of presenting fresh poison to the bees, was tried by +Huber+ in such a variety of ways, as to prove beyond all doubt that it was the penetrating odour of the poison only, and not the manner of presenting it, that affected them; for when the poison had coagulated, the same mode of presentation produced no sensible effect, it might be offered them with perfect impunity. Butterflies and Moths are supposed to be directed by this sense to the discovery of their mates. If the female of the eggar moth (_Phalæna quercus_) be inclosed in a box, and placed in the neighbourhood of the males, they are attracted to the spot in such numbers as to show clearly that they are sensible of her presence. We have analogous instances of the existence of this faculty in other insects. The flesh-fly (_Musca vomitoria_) occasionally deposits its eggs on plants of the Stapelia genus, no doubt from their odour resembling that of putrefying flesh. This may be regarded by some as an evidence of mistaken instinct; but from what I have said in the chapter on Instinct, I think that my readers will consider this to be erroneous, and that it should rather be regarded as affording presumptive evidence of mistaken judgement. Instinct would direct the creature to deposit its eggs where the larvæ when hatched would be furnished with the means of subsistence, instead of thus exposing them to perish. At all events it affords tolerably good evidence of the existence of an organ of smell in the insect. The sense of +Touch+ in bees, that is their _active_ or _exploring touch_, seems to be very acute. To the nicety of this sense has been attributed their power of commencing and carrying on their works amid the darkness of the hives. The recognition of their queen evinces the existence of some such sense; for the experiments related at page 292, indicate that her presence is not ascertained either by the organs of sight, hearing, or smell.