The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-10-21
By FREDERICK y. HAsKIN

WASHINGTON, D. c., Oct. 21.-
Did you ever imagine what the world
resembles to a bee or an ant? Put
ting yourself in an insects place is
not just matter of picturing your
normal self reduced a million or sc
times and walking about seeing
crumbs as loaves of bread and Jumps
in the carpet as mountains You must
build up new world, one that is more
fantastic that H. G. Wells idea OF
Mars. And even then a human being
can have only dim conception OF
what life would be if he had six legs
and depended on his sense of smell
more than his eyes to tell him what
the world is like.
If you fancy yourself a worker in
the bee world, for example, you must
imagine yourself recognizing hive
neighbors by their distinctive odor
Family resemblance in the social or
der of bees is a matter of hive and
family odor rather than of peculiar ap.
pearance.
When you returned home after a
long, journey in search of nectar the
sentinel at the door would know you
by the odor of the hive which you
carried. If by some mishap you be-
came lost or injured and did not re-
turn to the hive. for several days the
hive odor would gradually become
faint and when you arrived the guard.
ian of the door would sound the warn
ing that a stranger was trying to break
in. The result would be a tragic end
ing of your useful career.
AS honey bee you would have an
intense passion for sweet things, and
if a scientist got you in his power and
put you to work in his experiments
you would show him that a bee cannot
be fooled by bitter salts in candy. You
would be a connoisseur to the extent
of recognizing the difference between
candy containing strychine and candy
containing quinine when the scientist
himself could not detect any differ
ence in the taste.
These random glimpSes of life in an
insects world are gathered from the
experiments of DR.. N. E. McIndoo OF
the bureau of entomology. DR.. McIn.
doc recently has published paper on
the senses of insects in which he ex.
plains his latest observations and con-
clusions, especially those relating to
the olfactory sense.
Insects Have
New Science.
I'm regard to odors," he says, ain.
sects have already evolved new
science and are capable of classifying
and analiZing odors, many of which
are unknown to us. Furthermore,
they have evolved special organs foe
producing odors and highly develop
ed ones for receiving them In fact,
the olfactory sense of insects, partic-
ularly in the honey bee is so highly
developed that we do not have any
more conception of it than does the
honeybee (if it could think as we dol
of our wonderfully developed sense
of sight, which is able to distinguish
accurately the size, form, and color of
objects"
Science for centuries has puzzled
over mysteries of animal life and
wondered how some of the tiny crea-
lures are unerringly guided to their
mates, to food, and to their homes.
1t was proved long ago that sight plays
a minor part in insect life. Some
scientists attribute the remarkable
feats of insects to instinct and others
believe that strange occult powers
guide them. Still other entomologists
are persuaded that one of the five
senses, highly developed, must rule
insect activities as sight rules human
life
Dr. McIndoo believes that a keen
olfactory sense accounts for much