60 PEPACTON 



som 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 

 knowledge 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 and 

 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. " Such rage of 

 honey in their bosom beats," 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 slowly and heavily from the 

 box. It seems loath to leave so much honey behind, 

 and it marks the place well. It mounts aloft in a 

 rapidly increasing spiral, surveying the near and 



