CAVE-DWELLING INSECTS. 155 



Tlie lads had evidently succeeded in their search, for 

 Joe appeared, carrying a black jug, half filled with 

 water. He laid it on its side, with the mouth close to 

 the gate. 



" All right !" he said. " Go ahead now. I warrant 

 the bees won't hurt us very much." 



I thrust a tuft of cotton into the opening, and then 

 cut out the sod around, thus preserving intact the natu- 

 ral gate to the nest. When this .was removed, and the 

 gallery beneath uncovered, the mystery of Joe's jug 

 was immediately explained. One after another a troop 

 of yellow-backed bees issued forth, mounted on wing 

 with angry whirr, coursed a few narrow circles, then 

 dived into the open mouth of the jug, where they were 

 immersed in the contents. 



"Oh, Joe," exclaimed Abby, "this is a base mode 

 of warfare. It equals the Avickedness of our white an- 

 cestors, who have literally exterminated the wild 

 aborigines by the enticements of the jug. Fie ! lie ! 

 Why don't you fight them like a man ?" (Fig. 52.) 



"Hugh Bond declared these bees trespassers," cried 

 the Mistress from the safe shelter of a neighboring pine 

 tree, "and I have heard him affirm that all trespassers 

 ought to be 'jugged.' Don't mind what Miss Abby 

 says, Joe." 



"Alas!" said the Doctor, also inclined to draw a 

 moral from the novel proceeding, " how often is Indus- 

 try, symbolized by the Inisy bee, utterly wrecked, and 

 its fruits desolated by the perfidious habit of which 

 the 'jug' is the emblem !" 



