That bees possess a fine sense of +Taste+, may be readily conceived from the delicious food which they collect, and from their having a preference for those flowers that afford the best honey, whenever such flowers grow abundantly in the neighbourhood of the hives. Hence the superiority of the honey of Narbonne, Hymettus, and Pontus. +Huber+ regards Taste as the least perfect of the senses of bees, but the reasons he gives for this opinion are unsatisfactory. Indeed the tongue of the bee is an organ so considerably developed, as to afford very strong evidence of its power of discrimination in the selection of food. +Cuvier+ considers it to be one of the primary functions of its organization. There is tolerably good presumptive evidence that bees have a quick sense of +Hearing+, from their being so sensibly affected by different sounds. The voice of the queen, for instance, has according to +Bonner+ and +Huber+ an almost magical effect upon them; and the practice of making some sort of noise at the time of hiving is founded upon this opinion. +Huber+ is of opinion that if bees do possess the sense of hearing it is differently modified from the same sense among beings of a higher order. The consequences which ensue upon the production of certain sounds either by themselves or others, show that the vibrations of the air make an impression upon some sense: +Huber+, for reasons which he does not well define, designates it as a sense analogous to hearing, a something acting in concert with and in aid of the antennæ. +Linnæus+ and +Bonnet+ thought that insects do not possess the sense of hearing; but I think they were mistaken. I have just stated the effect produced by the voice of a queen-bee, under particular circumstances; and there are other evidences, equally strong, to show that insects possess this faculty. One grasshopper will chirp in response to another, and the female be attracted by the voice of the male. +Brunelli+ shut up a male in a box, and allowed the female her liberty: as soon as the male chirped she flew to him immediately. For further evidence of the existence of this faculty in insects, see page 262. (Organs of Sensation.)