BEE-HUNTING 213 



visitor came back soon, and especially if she was 

 followed by her anxious sisters, we were satisfied. 

 With several bees flying in the same direction, it was 

 always easy to get the "line," which we marked by 

 some peculiar tree or other noticeable object in 

 the landscape. When several of our visitors were 

 eagerly filling themselves with honey, the cover was 

 shoved over them and they were carried for a distance 

 along the line and then liberated, and the line from 

 this new location ascertained. Thus were they 

 followed, up hill and down dale, and even through 

 woodlands; finally, we would come to a place in a 

 forest where we could follow the line no farther, 

 and then we took our first lesson in geometry by 

 getting a cross-line. This was done by carrying some 

 of the bees in the box for some rods to the right or 

 left; and when they were established there we knew 

 that at the apex of the angle made by the two inter- 

 secting lines stood the bee-tree. 



The triumph which filled us when we finally dis- 

 covered that stream of black particles entering some 

 knothole or the broken top of a tree, made us breath- 

 less; and all the way home we tried to temper our 

 excitement so as to make the announcement of our 

 discovery with a nonchalance characteristic of in- 

 variably successful hunters. 



However, we were by no means always successful. 

 Sometimes it would be too late in the day before 

 we established a line; and again a line would lead 

 us in a disgusting fashion to some unsuspected 

 apiary; and now and then in a woodland tangle 



