THE PASTORAL BEES. 1) 
and if mine must go I want to be on hand to see the 
fun. It is a return to first principles again by a very 
direct route. The past season I witnessed two such 
escapes. One swarm had come out the day before, 
and, without alighting, had returned to the parent 
hive —some hitch in the plan, perhaps, or may be 
the queen had found her wings too weak. The next 
day they came out again, and were hived. But 
something offended them, or else the tree in the 
woods — perhaps some royal old maple or birch, 
holding its head high above all others, with snug, 
spacious, irregular chambers and galleries — had too 
many attractions; for they were presently discovered 
filling the air over the garden, and whirling excitedly 
around. Gradually they began to drift over the 
street; a moment more, and they had become sepa- 
rated from the other bees, and, drawing together in a 
more compact mass or cloud, away they went, a hum- 
ming, flying vortex of bees, the queen in the centre, 
and the swarm revolving around her as a pivot, — 
over meadows, across creeks and swamps, straight 
for the heart of the mountain, about a mile distant, 
—slow at first, so that the youth who gave chase 
kept up with them, but increasing their speed till 
only a fox hound could have kept them in sight. I 
saw their pursuer laboring up the side of the moun- 
tain ; saw his white shirt-sleeves gleam as he entered 
the woods; but he returned a few hours afterward 
without any clew as to the particular tree in which 
they had taken refuge out of the ten thousand that 
covered the side of the mountain. 
The other swarm came out about one o’clock of a 
hot July day, and at once showed symptoms that 
alarmed the keeper, who, however, threw neither 
