284- FOREIGN BEES. 



thought us, the honey and the hees were inaccessible, 

 and indeed invisible, save only when the natives cut 

 it out and brought it to us in little sheets of bark, 

 thus displaying a degree of ingenuity and skill in 

 supplying their wants, which we, with all our science, 

 could not hope to attain. They would catch one of 

 the bees and attach to it, with some rosin or gum, 

 the light down of the swan or owl ; thus laden, the 

 bee would make for the branch of some lofty tree, 

 and so betray its home of sweets to its keen-eyed 

 pursuers, whose bee-chase presented indeed a laugh- 

 able scene."* 



In the Western Hemisphere we find the honey- 

 bee in as great variety and abundance as in the 

 Eastern World. In the United States of America, 

 and stretching as far to the westward, as 95 deg. W. 

 long, the domestic bee of Europe has been naturalized, 

 and appears to prosper amazingly, in the new coun- 

 tries continually opening to civilization in that region. 

 Little more than thirty years ago, according to War- 

 den, it was not found to the westward of the Missis- 

 sippi ; but is now spreading over the extensive 

 prairies on the western banks of the Missouri. In 

 these regions, bee-hunting, or bee-liming, as it is there 

 called, is a very general occupation; and various 

 modes are described by travellers of obtaining the 

 fruit of the insects' labour. Knowing that in the 

 breeding season, the bees resort much to springs of 

 water in the woods, the hunter places on a flat stone 

 * Vol. i. p. 171. 



