CHAPTER XX 



BENEFICIAL AND INJURIOUS INSECTS 



IT remains to note the more direct influence of benefi- 

 cial and injurious insects on mankind. The history 

 of ancient literature shows that honey bees were do- 

 mesticated at an early period. They were favorites of 

 the Muses and presaged the gifts of eloquence and 

 poesy. Hence the story that Pindar was first moved 

 to write verses by bees settling on his lips when sleep- 

 ing on the road-side during a journey to Thespia. Bees 

 also foretold the future eloquence of Plato. While Ari- 

 osto his father was sacrificing to the Muses on Mount 

 Hymettus, the mother laid the child in a thicket of 

 myrtle. Bees clustered above him, droning their augury 

 of future eloquence, and — for so a myth is sure to grow 

 — wrought a honeycomb within his mouth. 



Roman soothsayers, on the contrary, believed bees, 

 at least in swarms, to be of evil augury, foretelling the 

 approach of hostile armies. Thus ran the tradition in 

 other nations also, with many and curious variations. 

 But underneath all lay the fact of their eminent service 

 to men by producing honey. And this filled a larger 

 place in satisfying human longing for sweets, in those 

 remote days, than in this era when science and extended 

 industry have so greatly enlarged and varied the pro- 

 duction of confections. For, like ants and bees and 



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