AS THE BEE FLIES 159 



fused to give up my hunt. From the main 

 log-road we turned off into a path, once a well- 

 trodden way to the old ox pastures, but now 

 almost overgrown, and pushed on through 

 brier and sweet-fern and huckleberry and 

 young birch, down across a little brook, and 

 up again to the &quot;old Sharon lot,&quot; a long field 

 framed in big woods and grown up to sumac 

 and brambles and goldenrod. It was warmer 

 here, in the steady sunshine, sheltered from 

 the crisp wind by the tree walls around us, 

 and we began to look about hopefully for bees. 

 At first Jonathan s gloomy prognostications 

 seemed justified there was not a bee in 

 sight. A few wasps were stirring, trailing their 

 long legs as they flew. Then one or two &quot;yel 

 low jackets&quot; appeared, and some black-and- 

 white hornets. But as the field grew warmer 

 it grew populous, bumblebees hummed, and 

 finally some little soft brown bees arrived 

 surely the ones we wanted. Cautiously 

 Jonathan approached one, held his box under 

 the goldenrod clump, brought the glass down 

 slowly from above and the bee was ours. 

 She was a gentle little thing, and did not seem 

 to resent her treatment at all, but dropped 



