REMARKS ON THE ENTOMOLOGY OF EPPING. 2'^3 



selves as eagerly and cheerily as so many wreckers on an Jndiaman 

 that has been driven on shore — plunging into the cells of the broken 

 honey-comb, banquetting greedily on the spoil, and then wino'ino- 

 their w^ay full-freighted to their homes. As to the poor proprietors 

 of the ruin, they seemed to have no heart to do any thing, not even 

 to taste the nectar that flowed around them, but crawled backwards 

 and forwards in vacant desolation, as I have seen a poor fellow, with 

 his hands in his breeches pocket, whistling vacantly and despond- 

 ingly about the ruins of his house that had been burned. 



It is difficult to describe the bewilderment of the bees of the 

 bankrupt hive, who had been absent at the time of the catastrophe, 

 and who arrived, from time to time, with full cargoes from abroad. 

 At first they wheeled about the air, in the place where the tree had 

 once reared its head, astonished at finding all a vacuum. At length, 

 as if comprehending their disaster, they settled down, in clusters, on 

 a dry branch of a neighbouring tree, from whence they seemed to 

 contemplate the prostrate ruin, and to buzz forth doleful lamen- 

 tations over the downfall of their republic. It was a scene on which 

 the melancholy Jacques might have moralized by the hour. 



We now abandoned the place, leaving much honey in the hollow 

 tree. " It will be all cleared off by varmint," said one of the 

 rangers. 



" What vermin ?" asked I. 



" O, bears and skunks, and racoons, and 'possums. The bears is 

 the knowingest varmint for finding out a bee-tree in the world. 

 They'll gnaw for days together at the trunk, till they make a hole 

 big enough to get in their paws, and then they'll haul out honey, 

 bees and all." 



Art. XXVI. — Remarks on the Entomology of Epping and 

 its Vicinity. By Edward Doubleday. 



(Continued from page 159 ) 



" Ablatum mediis opus est incudibus illud 

 Defuit et scriptis ultima lima meis. 

 Et veniam pro laude peto : laudatus abunde, 

 Non fastiditus si tibi, Lector, ero." 



Dear Sir, — In this, my second epistle to you on this 

 subject, it is ray intention merely to offer a few remarks on 



