INTRODUCTION. 7 



In Greece bees were recognised as omens of future 

 eloquence, and the stories are well known of the swarin- 

 ing of bees upon the lips of Pindar and of Plato, who 



"Did shed 

 Sweet words like dropping honey." 



And the title of " The Attic Bee" was bestowed upon 

 Xenophon.* 



Later, Antonius, a Greek monk (of the eighth ? 

 twelfth ? century), who formed two Books of Sentences 

 collected from the rich field of the writings of the early 

 Christian Fathers, was surnamed " Melissa," or the Bee ; 

 and Leo Allatius (keeper of the Vatican Library in the 

 seventeenth century), gave to the illustrious men of his 

 own time the collective name of Apes Urbanae. 



It is not easy to account for some of the modern super- 

 stitions which attach to bees. 



The county of Kent is rich in these ; there, if the 

 bees swarm upon a dead tree, the result is a death in 

 the family of their owner ; and so strong is the feeling 

 upon this subject, that care is taken to avert such a 

 misfortune by cutting down any dead tree before the 

 time of the swarming of the bees. In the same county 

 the intimate relation between the hive and the house- 

 hold is also shown by a curious custom which prevails 

 of waking up the bees by knocking on the hive, to tell 

 them when a death occurs in the family. In Brittany 

 (and in Cornwall ?) they tie a small piece of black stuff 

 to the beehives at the time of a death, and a piece of red 

 in the case of a marriage ; without this the bees would 

 never thrive. In the district of Quimperle, if the hives 



Contrast with these our " Wasp of Twickenham." 



