again.

SENSE OF DIRECTION

It has been supposed that animals possess also what has been called a
Sense of Direction. Many interesting cases are on record of animals
finding their way home after being taken a considerable distance. To
account for this fact it has been suggested that animals possess a sense
with which we are not endowed, or of which, at any rate, we possess only
a trace. The homing instinct of the pigeon has also been ascribed to the
same faculty. My brother Alfred, however, who has paid much attention to
pigeons, informs me that they are never taken any great distance at
once; but if they are intended to take a long flight, they are trained
to do so by stages.

Darwin suggested that it would be interesting to test the case by taking
animals in a close box, and then whirling them round rapidly before
letting them out. This is in fact done with cats in some parts of
France, when the family migrates, and is considered the only way of
preventing the cat from returning to the old home. Fabre has tried the
same thing with some wild Bees (Chalicodoma). He took some, marked them
on the back with a spot of white, and put them into a bag. He then
carried them a quarter of a mile, stopping at a point where an old cross
stands by the wayside, and whirled the bag rapidly round his head. While
he was doing so a good woman came by, who seemed not a little surprised
to find the Professor solemnly whirling a black bag round his head in
front of the cross; and, he fears, suspected him of Satanic practices.
He then carried his Bees a mile and a half in the opposite direction and
let them go. Three out of ten found their way home. He tried the same
experiment several times, in one case taking them a little over two
miles. On an average about a third of the Bees found their way home. "La
demonstration," says Fabre, "est suffisante. Ni les mouvements
enchevetres d'une rotation comme je l'ai decrite; ni l'obstacle de
collines a franchir et de bois a traverser; ni les embuches d'une voie
qui s'avance, retrograde, et revient par un ample circuit, ne peuvent
troubler les Chalicodomes depayses et les empecher de revenir au nid."

I must say, however, that I am not convinced. In the first place, the
distances were I think too short; and in the second, though it is true
that some of the Bees found their way home, nearly two-thirds failed to
do so. It would be interesting to try the experiment again, taking the
Bees say five m