282 



A BEE HUNT IN THE PRAIRIES. 



Several were humming about it, and diving into its cells. When 

 they had laden themselves with honey, they would rise up in the air, 

 and dart off in one straight line, almost with the velocity of a bullet. 

 The hunters watched attentively the course they took, and then set 

 off in the same direction, stumbling along over twisted roots and fallen 

 trees, with their eyes turned up to the sky. In this way they traced 

 the honey-laden bees to their hive in the hollow trunk of a blasted 

 oak, where, after buzzing about for a moment, they entered a hole 

 about sixty feet from the ground. 



Two of the bee-hunters now plied their axes vigorously to the 

 root of the tree to level it with the ground. The mere spectators and 

 amateurs, in the mean time, drew off to a cautious distance, to be out 

 of the way of the falling of the tree and the vengeance of its inmates. 

 The jarring blows of the axe seemed to have no effect in alarming or 

 agitating this most industrious community. They continued to ply 

 at their usual occupations, — some arriving full-freighted into port, 

 others sallying forth on new expeditions, like so many merchantmen 

 in a money-making metropolis, little suspicious of impending bank- 

 ruptcy and downfall. Even a loud crack, which announced the 

 disrujjture of the trunk, failed to divert their attention from the 

 intense pursuit of gain. At length down came the tree with a 

 tremendous crash, bursting open from end to end, and displaying all 

 the hoarded treasures of the commonwealth. 



One of the hunters immediately ran up with a wisp of lighted hay 

 as a defence against the bees. The latter, however, made no attack, 

 and sought no revenge : they seemed stupified by the catastrophe, 

 and unsuspicious of its cause, and remained crawling and buzzing 

 about the ruins without offering us any miolestation. Every one of 

 the party now fell to, with spoon and hunting knife, to scoop out the 

 flakes of honey-comb with which the hollow trunk was stored. 

 Some of them were of old date, and a deep brown colour ; others 

 were beautifully white, and the honey in their cells was almost 

 limpid. Such of the combs as were entire were placed in camp 

 kettles, to be conveyed to the encampment ; those which had been 

 shivered by the fall were divided on the spot. Every stark bee- 

 hunter was to be seen with a rich morsel in his hand, dripping about 

 his fingers, and disappearing as rapidly as a cream tart before the 

 holiday appetite of a school-boy. 



Nor was it the bee-hunters alone that profited by the downfall of 

 this industrious community. As if the bees would carry through 

 the similitude of their habits with those of laborious and gainful man, 

 I beheld numbers, from rival hives, arriving on eager wing, to enrich 

 themselves with the ruin of their neighbours. They busied them- 



