May 21. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



499 



BEES AND THE SPHTNX ATROPOS. 



Huber, in his Observations on the Natural His- 

 tory of Bees, avers that the moth called the Sphynx 

 atropos invades and plunders with impunity a hive 

 containing thousands of bees, notwithstanding the 

 watchfulness, pugnacity, and formidable weapons 

 of those insects. To account for this phenome- 

 non, he states that the queen bee has the faculty 

 of emitting a certain sound which instantly strikes 

 the bees motionless ; and he conjectures that this 

 burglarious moth, being endowed with the same 

 property, uses it to produce a similar effect, first 

 on the sentinels at the entrance of the hive, and 

 then on the bees within. 



In another part of his book (2nd edit. 1808, 

 p. 202.) he relates what he himself witnessed on 

 introducing a strange queen into a hive. The 

 bees, greatly irritated, pulled her, bit her, and 

 chased her away ; but on her emitting the sound 

 and assuming an extraordinary attitude, " the 

 bees all hung down their heads and remained 

 motionless." On the following day he repeated 

 the experiment, and the intrusive queen was si- 

 milarly maltreated; but when she emitted her 

 sound, and assumed the attitude, from that mo- 

 ment the bees again became motionless. 



Have more modern observers verified this cu- 

 rious fact ? Is it not a case of mesmerism ? 



Sydney Smikke. 



"the craftsman's apologt." 



When Bolingbroke published his Final Answer 

 to the Remarks on the Craftsman's Vindication, and 

 to all the Libels which have come, or may come from 

 the same quarter against the Person last mentioned in 

 the Craftsman of the 22nd May, 1731, he was an- 

 swered in five Poetical Letters to the King, which 

 in keenness of wit, polished satire, and flowing ease 

 of versification, have not been since surpassed. 

 The title of the tract in which they are contained 

 is The Craftsman's Apology, being a Vindication of 

 Ms Conduct and Writings in several Letters to the 

 King, printed for T. Cooper, 1732, 8vo. pages 32. 

 By whom were these very clever and amusing 

 letters written ? Lord Hervey or Sir Charles 

 Hanbury Williams are the parties one would think 

 most likely to have written them ; but they do not 

 appear in the list of Lord Hervey's works given 

 by Walpole, or amongst those noticed by Mr. 

 Croker, or in Sir C. H. Williams's Collected Works, 

 in three volumes. Independently of which, I 

 question whether the versification is not, in point 

 of harmony, too equal for either of them. If they 

 be included in the collected works of any other 

 writer of the time, which I have no immediate re- 

 collection of, some of your correspondents will no 

 doubt be able to point him out. Should it appear 



that they have not been reprinted, I shall be dis- 

 posed to recur again to the subject, and to give 

 an extract from them, as, of all the attacks ever 

 made upon Bolingbroke, they seem to me the most 

 pleasant, witty, and effective. Jas. Crossust. 



PALISSY and cardinal WISEMAN. 



On April 28, Cardinal Wiseman, at the Man- 

 chester Corn Exchange, delivered a lecture " On 

 the Relation of the Arts of Design to the Arts of 

 Production." It occupies thirteen columns of The 

 Tablet of May 7, which professes to give it " from 

 The Manchester Examiner, with corrections and 

 additions." I have read it with pleasure, and shall 

 preserve it as one of the best discourses on Art ever 

 delivered ; but there is a matter of fact, on which 

 I am not so well satisfied. In noticing Bernard 

 Palissy, the cardinal is reported to have said : 



" For sixteen years he persevered in this way ; and 

 then was crowned with success, and produced the first 

 specimens of coloured and beautiful pottery, such as 

 are to this day sought by the curious ; and he received 

 a situation in the king's household, and ended his days in 

 cotjifort and respectability." 



In the review of " Morley's Life of Palissy the 

 Potter," Spectator, Oct. 9, 1852, it is said : 



« The period of the great potter's birth is uncertain. 

 Mr. Morley fixes it, on probable data, at 1509; but 

 with a latitude of six years on either side. Palissy died 

 in 1589 in the Bastile, where he had been confined four 

 years as a Hugenot ; the king and his other friends could 

 defer his trial, but dared not grant him liberty." 



All the accounts which I have read agree with 

 Mr. Morley and the Spectator. Are they or the 

 cardinal right, supposing him to be correctly re- 

 ported ? H. B. C. 



U. U. Club. 



:l^tn0r ^uccteS. 



Polidus. — Can you tell me where the scene of 

 the following play is laid, and the names of the 

 dramatis personts ? — Polidus, a Tragedy, by Moses 

 Browne, 8vo. 1723. The author of this play, who 

 was born in 1703, and died in 1787, was for some 

 time the curate of the Rev. James Hervey, author 

 of Meditations, and other works. Mr. Browne was 

 afterwai-ds presented to the vicarage of Olney, 

 in Bucks, where the Rev. John Newton was his 

 curate for several years.* A. Z. 



Glasgow. 



[* Moses Browne was subsequently Chaplain of 

 Morden College. The piscatory brotherhood are in- 

 debted to him for having revived Walton's Complete 

 Angler, after it had lain dormant for upwards of eighty 

 years ; and this task, he tells us, was undertaken at the 

 request of Dr. Samuel Johnson. — Ed. J 



