328 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



number of his assailants, his sufferings brought him 

 to the ground, and in less than five minutes from 

 the commencement of the attack, the poor animal 

 was literally stung to death . * 



A similar fact is recorded by Mungo Park. His 

 people, while searching for honey, disturbed a large 

 colony of bees, who sallied forth in myriads, and 

 attacking men and beasts indiscriminately, put them 

 all to the rout. One horse and six asses were either 

 killed or missing in consequence of their attack ; and 

 for half an hour the bees seemed to have completely 

 put an end to their journey. On another occasion, 

 one ass was lost and a man almost killed by the 

 bees, "f Lesser relates, that in 1525, during the 

 confusion occasioned by a time of war, a mob of 

 peasants assembling in Hohorstein, attempted to 

 pillage the house of the minister of Eleude, who, 

 having in vain employed all his eloquence to dis- 

 suade them from their design, ordered his servants 

 to fetch his bee-hives, and throw them into the mid- 

 dle of the infuriated multitude. The effect answered 

 his expectations, for they were immediately put to 

 flight. X 



Besides attacking the larger animals, however, 

 individuals of adjacent hives often engage in fatal 

 duels. Sometimes a bee, while sitting peaceably 

 on the outside of a hive or walking about, is rudely 

 jostled by another, when the combat immediately 

 commences with such bitter violence, that they per- 

 mitted Reaumur to examine them quite closely with 

 a magnifying glass. They wrestle, turn, pirouette, 

 and throttle each other ; and after rolling about in 

 the dust, the victor, watching the time when the 

 enemy uncovers his body by elongating it in the 



* Five Years' Residence in the Canadas. 

 t Park's last Mission to Africa, pp. 153 — 297 

 t Insecto-Theologie, ii, 171. 



