THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



fly to be seen in spring, has passed the winter in my 

 " Slabsides." The monarch migrates, probably the 

 only one of our butterflies that does. It is a great 

 flyer. I have seen it in the fall sailing serenely along 

 over the inferno of New York streets. It has crossed 

 the ocean and is spreading over the world. The 

 yellow and black hornets lose heart as autumn comes 

 on, desert their paper nests and die all but the 

 queen or mother hornet ; she hunts out a retreat in 

 the ground and passes the winter beyond the reach 

 of frost. In the spring she comes forth and begins 

 life anew, starting a little cone-shaped paper nest, 

 building a few paper cells, laying an egg in each, and 

 thus starting the new colony. 



The same is true of the bumblebees; they are 

 the creatures of a summer. In August, when the 

 flowers fail, the colony breaks up, they desert the nest 

 and pick up a precarious subsistence on asters and 

 thistles till the frosts of October cut them off. You 

 may often see, in late September or early October, 

 these tramp bees passing the night or a cold rain- 

 storm on the lee side of a thistle-head. The queen 

 bee alone survives. You never see her playing the 

 vagabond in the fall. At least I never have. She 

 hunts out a retreat in the ground and passes the 

 winter there, doubtless in a torpid state, as she 

 stores no food against the inclement season. Emer- 

 son has put this fact into his poem on ' * The Humble- 



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