94 LONDON INSECTS 



fairly well But besides stray members of such hives, 

 we have a fair share of the two hundred and fifty or 

 more wild sorts known in England, and may watch 

 them at our leisure, of every degree of size and activity, 

 from clumsy ' bumblers,' which seem never quite sure 

 how to use their wings, and well content if they can 

 blunder home somehow without banging themselves 

 against a tree, to spiritual little Bees which hang for a 

 minute or two at a time, like humming-birds, to all 

 appearance motionless over a flower, to vanish with a 

 saucy whisk and appear again the next moment as 

 still as before over another flower. 



On a Saturday morning in July 1885, an assistant 

 in Messrs. Mappin and Webb's shop, while crossing 

 the pavement in Regent Street, found himself suddenly 

 covered from head to waist by a swarm of Bees. 

 Fortunately he had presence of mind and kept still 

 until, with the help of sympathetic bystanders, coat 

 and hat were taken off, when, as suddenly as it had 

 come, the swarm rose and left him with no hurt more 

 serious than a couple of stings on the neck. 



Shakespeare, not very appropriately, puts into the 

 mouth of Henry the Fifth of England, the usurper's 

 son, his description of the Bees which teach 



' The act of order to a peopled kingdom ' : 



the story of their merchants, magistrates, soldiers, 

 'civil citizens,' 'poor mechanic porters,' and 'officers 

 of sorts/ all looking up to their heaven-appointed 

 sovereign 



