72 AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE. 



among our wild flowers a form closely veiled and 

 cloaked. The buccaneer bumble-bee sometimes tries 

 to rifle it of its sweets. I have seen the blossom 

 with the bee entombed in it. He had forced his way 

 into the virgin corolla as if determined to know its 

 secret, but he had never returned with the knowl- 

 edge he had gained. 



After a refreshing walk of a couple of miles we 

 reach a point where we will make our first trial a 

 high stone wall that runs parallel with the wooded 

 ridge referred to, and separated from it by a broad 

 field. There are bees at work there on that golden- 

 rod and it requires but little manoeuvring to sweep 

 one into our box. Almost any other creature rudely 

 and suddenly arrested in its career and clapped into 

 a cage in this way would show great confusion arid 

 alarm. The bee is alarmed for a moment, but the bee 

 has a passion stronger than its love of life or fear of 

 death, namely, desire for honey, not simply to eat, 

 but to carry home as booty, (j Such rage of honey in 

 their bosom beats,3 says Virgil. It is quick to catch 

 the scent of honey in the box, and as quick to fall 

 to filling itself. We now set the box down upon the 

 wall and gently remove the cover. The bee is head 

 and shoulders in one of the half-filled cells, and is 

 oblivious to everything else about it. Come rack, 

 come ruin, it will die at work. We step back a few 

 paces, and sit down upon the ground so as to bring 

 the box against the blue sky as a background. In 

 two or three minutes the bee is seen rising slowlj 



