THE FAERY YEAR 



harder squeeze in a few hours with the gun. He 

 went on working, however, years after his legs 

 declined to take him shooting. 



Nature's Professional Sybarite 



When Nature has got all she needs from plant, 

 bird, beast, or insect, she ends it. This is the rule. 

 No long, wretched dragging-out of a used-up, lack- 

 lustre life. But the expelled drones of the bee- 

 hives are an exception. Many more drones escape 

 the onslaught of the worker bees at the end of 

 summer than is commonly supposed. I know of 

 a dining-room with large windows facing west, near 

 several hives ; and for weeks after the expulsion, 

 numbers of the drones crawl up and tumble down 

 the glass windows with impotent buzz. They die 

 by inches. Some survive far into the autumn. I 

 have seen them alive in November. But this year, 

 for the first time, I found a live drone indoors in 

 March. It had dragged its crippled, profitless life 

 through the winter had hibernated like many 

 insects ; only, unlike these insects, to no conceivable 

 purpose. 



Now the worker bee, separated from her kind, 

 imprisoned in a building, however warm and 

 sheltered, and supplied with choice food, may 

 scarcely live longer than a few days. Yet her 

 life is of value to Nature ; whereas the expelled 

 drone's life is useless. Why, then, this ridiculous, 



