4 BEES. 



peculiar branch of natural history. Lions, tigers, elephants, 

 giraffes, in dens, as we see them at the zoolog-ical gardens, 

 give us very little idea of what their demeanour would be 

 in their native forests. Who could (unless he were a German) 

 write a natural -jistory of the hippopotamus from examination 

 of the mild, affectionate, oily monster who waddles after 

 his keeper, and would not hear of going to sleep unless 

 his human companion slept by his side ? Or who will say 

 that the much enduring lions, or the slouching, lazy Polar 

 bears, give much idea of the manners of those animals in 

 their native haunts, where the lion stalks fearlessly, and with 

 that majesty of deportment which want of fear always gives, 

 or springs like a thunderbolt on his prey, dashing the enor- 

 mous giraffe to the ground ; or where, amid everlasting ice 

 and snow, the Polar bear glides through the water in chase 

 of the seal, or from the ice cliff defies the armed men who 

 approach ? Animals to be studied properly must be studied 

 in their natural states, and if the observer cannot go to 

 them, he must bring them to him. This he cannot do with 

 the larger animals, but he can with the insects. The space 

 which would not suffice for a lion to turn in, will form a 

 forest for a beetle, and any one who has a room to give up 

 to insects, and a hand to execute, can draw round him colo- 

 nies of almost every order of insect, exhibiting their in- 

 stincts and habits, as perfectly as if they had been left in 

 the fields. He must have a hand to execute, because, when 

 he comes to the practical part of the business, he will find, 

 that in order to make the artificial forest, brook, or earth, 

 as like the original as possible in all its properties, some 

 amount of handiwork is required, and if, like Davy's experi- 

 mental philosopher, he cannot saw a plank with a gimlet, or 

 bore a hole with a saw, woe be to his purse. With, how- 

 ever, some ingenuity in resource and workmanship, the 

 study of insects may be pursued with scarcely any detri- 

 ment to the pocket, and any one possessing a room, or what 

 is still more valuable, a room and a yard, or the roof of a 

 • house, may make a magic circle within which he may gather 

 an incredible amount of insects, some by bringing them 

 irom their native haunts, and others, by laying such irre- 

 sistible inducements for them, that they come of their own 

 accord. He may rear most valuable moths and butterflie 



