252 ECHOES. 



beautiful fiction. Nor need the gravest man be 

 ashamed to appear taken with such a phenomenon, 

 since it may become the subject of philosophical or 

 mathematical inquiries. 



One should have imagined that echoes, if not enter- 

 taining, must at least have been harmless and in- 

 offensive : yet Virgil advances a strange notion, that 

 they are injurious to bees. After enumerating some 

 probable and reasonable annoyances, such as prudent 

 owners would wish far removed from their bee- 

 gardens, he adds, 



" Aut ubi concava pulsu 



Saxa sonant, vocisque offensa resultat imago." 



Or where the hollow rocks emit a sound, 

 And echoed voices from the cliffs rebound. 



This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be 

 admitted by the philosophers of these days, espe- 

 cially as they all now seem agreed that insects are 

 not furnished with any organs of hearing at all. But 

 if it should be urged, that, though they cannot hear, 

 yet perhaps they may feel the repercussion of sounds, 

 I grant it is possible they may. Yet that these im- 

 pressions are distasteful or hurtful I deny, because 

 bees, in good summers, thrive well in my outlet, 

 where the echoes are very strong ; for this village is 

 another Anathoth, a place of responses, or echoes. 

 Besides, it does not appear from experiment that 

 bees are in any way capable of being affected by 

 sounds : for I have often tried my own with a large 

 speaking trumpet held close to their hives, and with 

 such an exertion of voice as would have hailed a ship 

 at the distance of a mile, and still these insects pursued 

 their various employments undisturbed, and without 

 showing the least sensibility or resentment. 



Some time since its discovery, this echo is become 



