TItANSATLANTIC BEES. 211 



through the bees' economic uses and the riches of the hive, if 

 we could but give them hopes of making the same available- 

 presently or prospectively to the interest of themselves. They 

 would not care a rush (how should they ?) for the information 

 of an American poet the nature-painting Bryant when he 

 tells us how that 



" The bee, a more adventurous colonist than man, 

 With whom he came across the eastern deep," 



is always (as becomes a wild-wood insect) the precursor of 

 civilization in the giant forests of his Transatlantic clime. He 

 there (or to speak more correctly) she there 



" Fills the Savannahs with her munuurings, 

 And hides her sweets, as in the golden age, 

 Within the hollow oak. I listen long 

 To her domestic hum, and think I hear 

 The sound of that advancing multitude, 

 Which soon shall fill these deserts." 



To the strains of the poet (sing he never so sweetly) the ears 

 of the mammon worshipper the mere utilitarian are doubt- 

 less deaf enough - } but the American poet has (or had) a 

 quaker countryman, named (we think) John Schail, who, on the 

 subject of bees, is much more likely to move a sordid spirit. 



This gentleman, in the year 1845, was exhibiting in London 

 his American barrel hives of wood, constructed on the humane 

 principle of non- destruction to their busy inmates ; and in con- 

 nection therewith was the proposer of plans for bee cultivation 

 on an extensive and profitable scale. Some persons were induced, 



