124 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



general completeness of form and structure. When 

 bees are spoken of, the representative of the family 

 most familiarly associated with the name is the 

 ordinary honey-bee which has for countless gen- 

 erations lived, laboured, and died an ignominious 

 death in the straw skeps of our rustic gardens. The 

 common variety is often known as the German bee, 

 its original home having been the woods and moun- 

 tains of Central Europe. A successful rival of late 

 for the notice of the intelligent apiarist is the Ligurian 

 bee introduced from Italy, where in course of time, 

 thanks to enforced separation from its relations 

 north of the high ranges of mountains which hem 

 in its native land, it developed those slight differ- 

 ences in structure and colour which now mark it 

 as a separate variety. Both varieties were un- 

 known in North America, until they were introduced 

 from Europe ; but they have thriven and multiplied 

 enormously in their new home, especially in the 

 Western States, where they are still known amongst 

 the Indians as the white man's fly. The other bees 

 known in this country are the humble-bees, of which 

 there are several varieties ; but, although very 

 interesting in their behaviour and habits, as will be 

 seen further on, these are but the bumpkins of the 

 bee family, who are content to spend their rude 

 lives in arcadian dulness, living from hand to mouth, 

 with no capacity for the aspiring life and higher 

 civilization of their more gifted relations. 



I am not a bee-keeper in the proper sense of the 

 word. In my opinion, that occupation, on a large 

 scale at all events, should in this country be left 

 entirely to those possessed of an unwavering faith 

 in our variable climate. My bees are not required, 



