A YEAR IN THE FIELDS 



do, the fable of bees originating from the 

 carcass of a steer ? or that on windy days 

 they carried little stones for ballast ? or that 

 two hostile swarms fought each other in the 

 air? Indeed, the ignorance, or the false 

 science, of the ancient observers, with re- 

 gard to the whole subject of bees, is most 

 remarkable ; not false science merely with 

 regard to their more hidden operations, but 

 with regard to that which is open and patent 

 to all who have eyes in their heads, and 

 have ever had to do with them. And Pliny 

 names authors who had devoted their whole 

 lives to the study of the subject. 



But the ancients, like women and chil- 

 dren, were not accurate observers. Just at 

 the critical moment their eyes were un- 

 steady, or their fancy, or their credulity, or 

 their impatience, got the better of them, so 

 that their science was half fact and half 

 fable. Thus, for instance, because the young 

 cuckoo at times appeared to take the head 

 of its small foster mother quite into its 

 mouth while receiving its food, they believed 

 that it finally devoured her. Pliny, who 

 embodied the science of his times in his 

 natural history, says of the wasp that it 

 carries spiders to its nest, and then sits 

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