Song Birds and Water Fowl 
another writer has voiced the same sentiment 
in more modern phrase, when he said, 
‘* From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray, 
From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, 
Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.” 
Observe the different obligations of these two 
insects. Bees survive the winter, and need to 
lay up a moderate store for the unfruitful days 
to come; yet even this does not call for their 
excessive hoarding of treasure. But how per- 
fectly ridiculous for a butterfly, that commonly 
dies soon after depositing its eggs, or, if it lives 
through the winter, merely hibernates, and 
whose acquisitions could be of no possible avail 
to its descendants, which, like itself, are but 
the creatures of a summer’s day—how absurd 
for this ephemeral being to make itself a drudge, 
toil early and late, and eat the bread of sorrow. 
We are commonly very much prejudiced in 
favor of any creature whose habits directly con- 
duce to our own interests. If honey happened 
to be sour and unpalatable, instead of delicious, 
with what contempt should we probably regard 
the bee’s miserly disposition. We should then 
use him to point a very severe moral, instead of 
adorning a very handsome tale. Solomon, who 
eve 
