176 APID^ — BEES. 



furnishes a similar legend of the piety of Bees. Bee 

 speaks : 



"Know, sir, that we have also a religion as well as you, and 

 so exact a government among us here; our huramings you 

 speak of are as so many hymns to the Great God of Nature ; 

 and there is a miraculous example in Cse^arius Cislernieiisis, 

 of some of the Holy Eucharist being let fall in a meadow by 

 a priest, as he was returning from visiting a sick body; a 

 swarm of Bees hard-by took It up, and in a solemn kind of 

 procession carried It to their hive, and their erected an 

 altar of the purest wax for it, where it was found in that 

 form, and untouched.'" 



Butler, quoting Thomas Bozius, tells us the following: 



" Certaine theeves (thieves) having stolen the silver boxe 

 wherein the wafer-Gods vse to lie, and finding one of them 

 there being loath, belike, that he should lie abroad all night, 

 did not cast him away, but laid him under a hive : whom the 

 Bees acknowledging advanced to a high roome in the hive, 

 and there insteade of his silver boxe made him another of 

 the whitest wax : and when they had so done, in worshippe 

 of him, and set howres they sang most sweetly beyond all 

 measure about it : yea the owner of them took them at it at 

 midnight with a light and al. Wherewith the bishop being 

 made acquainted, came thither with many others: and lifting 

 vp the hive he sawe there neere the top a most fine boxe, 

 wherein the host was laid, and the quires of Bees singing 

 about it, and keeping watch in the night, as monkes do in 

 their cloisters. The bishop therefore taking the host, car- 

 ried it with the greater honour into the church : whether 

 many resorting were cured of innumerable diseases."^ 



Another legend, from the School of the Eucharist, is as 

 follows : 



"A peasant swayed by a covetous mind, being communi- 

 cated on Easter-Day, received the Host in his mouth, and 

 afterwards laid it among his bees, believing that all the Bees 

 of the neighborhood would come thither to work their wax 

 and honey. This covetous, impious wretch was not wholly 

 disappointed of his hopes; for all his neighbors' Bees came 

 indeed to his hives, but not to make honey, but to render 

 there the honours due to the Creator. The issue of their 



1 Parlpy of Beasts, p. 144. London, IGGO. 



2 Uozius, ubi suj)ra. Buller, ubi sicpra. 



