HUNTING THE HONEY-BEE 249 



landscape — now darkening the green of meadow 

 and pasture land, now the yellow of the stubble 

 fields, and now flooding the light and shade of the 

 woods with universal shadow. There is a whole- 

 some coolness in the shade, and not too fervent 

 warmth in the sunshine for one to bask comfortably 

 therein if he will. 



The bee-hunter is burdened with but few im- 

 plements in his chase: first of all, a "bee-box," 

 six inches or so in length and a little less in width 

 and height, with a hinged lid in which is set a 

 small square of glass; midway between this and the 

 bottom is a slide dividing the box into two com- 

 partments, the lower one holding a piece of honey- 

 comb partly filled when in use with a thin syrup of 

 white sugar and water. There is also an axe, or, 

 perhaps, no larger cutting tool than a jack-knife; 

 sometimes a compass, and, if he be of a feeding 

 turn of stomach, a dinner-pail. So equipped, he 

 takes the field, seeking his small quarry along 

 wood-side meadow fences, whose stakes and top 

 rails alone show above a flowery tangle of golden- 

 rod, asters, and willow herb; in pastures that 

 border the woods, dotted with these and thorny 

 clumps of bull-thistles and the dark-green sedge 

 and wild grass of the swales, overtopped by the 

 dull white blossoms of boneset, pierced by clustered 

 purple spikes of vervain, and here and there 

 ablaze with the fire of the cardinal-flower. 



