218 INDEX. 



no one should interrupt another in his work ; wood-yards 

 larger or smaller in proportion to the number in family ; 

 manner of catching them in snares, or by surprise ; they 

 swim with their mortar on their tails, and their shakes be- 

 tween their teeth ; their works, damaged by force of water, 

 or feet of huntsmen, instantly repaired, iii. 251, &c. 



Beauty, every country has peculiar ideas of beauty ; extraor- 

 dinary tastes for beauty ; every nation, how barbarous so- 

 ever, has peculiar arts of heightening beauty ; several of 

 these arts, i. 407. A modern lady's face, formed exactly 

 like the Venus of Medicis, or the Sleeping Vestal, would 

 scarcely be considered as a beauty, except by the lovers 

 of antiquity ; less in the object than in the eye of the be- 

 holder ; superior beauty of pur ancestors not easily com- 

 parable, ii. 110. 



Beccafigo, a bird of the sparrow kind, iv. 255. 



Bed of a river, an increase of water there increases its rapi- 

 dity, except in cases of inundation, and why ; such bed left 

 dry for some hours by a violent storm blowing directly 

 against the stream, i. 177. 



Beds, the earth every where in beds over beds, and each of 

 them maintaining exactly the same thickness, i. 55. 



Bee, a ruminating insect, or seemingly so ; its stomach is com- 

 posed of muscular fibres, ii. 225. Operations studied for 

 two thousand years are still incompletely known ; lleau- 

 mur's account sufficiently wonderful ; many of the facts held 

 dubious by those conversant with the subject; some de- 

 clared not to have existence in nature ; three different kinds 

 of bees; common working bees neither male nor female ; 

 queen bees lay all the eggs that are hatched in a season ; 

 structure of the working bee, particularly of its trunk, which 

 extracts the honey from flowers ; manner of building their 

 cells ; in one day they make cells upon each other enough 

 to contain three thousand bees ; description of those cells ; 

 the combs made by insensible degrees, not at once, as some 

 imagine; the cells for the young and for the drones ; that 

 for the queen bee the largest of all ; those for honey are 

 deeper than the rest; that not the only food upon which 

 they subsist ; manner of anticipating the progress of vege- 

 tation ; the bee has a stomach for wax as well as honey ; 

 bee bread ; treacle for food of bees in winter ; what part 

 of the flower has the honey ; sting of the bee ; one wanting 

 food bends down its trunk to the bee from whom it is ex- 

 pected, which then opens its honej'-bag, and lets some drops 

 fall into the other's mouth ; numerous as the multitude of 

 bees appear in a swarm, they all owe their origin to one 

 parent, called the queen bee ; opening the body of a queen 

 the eggs at one time found to amount to five thousand ; the 

 queen easily distinguished from the rest ; great fertility of 



