knots around them, as if apprehensive of the knots admitting moisture. In about fourteen days, these seeming surveyors were followed by a large swarm from his apiary, which was watched the whole way, till it alighted in one of these cavities. It was observed to journey nearly in a direct line from the apiary to the tree. On several similar occasions the bees selected that cavity which Mr. Knight thought best adapted to their use. He has also noticed that, a stock being nearly ready to swarm, one of these hollow trees was daily occupied by a small number of bees; but the swarm from that stock, being lodged in another _hive_, the tree was wholly deserted. This preference of a _hive_, when offered them, to a place chosen by themselves, Mr. Knight ascribes to a habit acquired by domestication, which generating a dependence upon man for providing them a dwelling, descends hereditarily from the parents to their offspring. Another instance is related by +Dr. Evans+: he suffered a hive, whose tenants had died in the winter, to remain upon the stand till spring: he then observed several bees paying it daily visits, and busily employed within, but leaving it at the close of evening. These soon appeared, like Dr. Warder's providers, to be the harbingers of a swarm; for, early in June, an immense body of these insects were seen rapidly approaching, and then surrounding the hive: they took possession as quickly as its narrow entrance and crowded combs would permit. The same result was noticed after the mild winter of 1806-7, which untenanted one of his hives by famine: he was present when the swarm issued (from another hive in his garden) to take possession of the empty one, which, on his endeavouring to raise it, to give facility to their entrance, he found already cemented to the floor. The Doctor also relates a case in which a swarm of bees "made its way either over the tops of some very high houses, or through several winding streets, to an old house in the centre of Shrewsbury, and passing through an aperture in the wood-work to a room on the first floor, were there hived by the family." +Mr. Butler+ in his _Feminine Monarchie_ mentions the case of a poor woman whose hive being depopulated by famine was allowed to remain out of doors till the ensuing summer, when a swarm took possession of it, from which she afterwards stored her garden. Other instances of a similar kind have been related; but in most of them it is not easy to ascertain how far the proprietors of the hives, from which the swarms went forth, had been improvident. The cases related by Mr. Knight are the most remarkable; but with respect to these, further information would be desirable. Was there any inducement beyond a snug housing in the cavities of the trees, to tempt the bees to wander so far from their native spot? such as favourite pasturage, or neighbouring trees that were wont to supply honey-dew? or were there in