76 PEP ACTON 



spider was ambushed there and had the bee by the 

 throat. The vampire was evidently afraid of the 

 bee's sting, and was holding it by the throat till 

 quite sure of its death. Virgil speaks of the painted 

 lizard, perhaps a species of salamander, as an enemy 

 of the honey-bee. We have no lizard that destroys 

 the bee; but our tree-toad, ambushed among the 

 apple and cherry blossoms, snaps them up whole- 

 sale. Quick as lightning that subtle but clammy 

 tongue darts forth, and the iftisuspecting bee is 

 gone. Virgil also accuses the titmouse and the 

 woodpecker of preying upon the bees, and our king- 

 bird has been charged with the like crime, but the 

 latter devours only the drones. The workers are 

 either too small and quick for it or else it dreads 

 their sting. 



Virgil, by the way, had little more than a child's 

 knowledge of the honey-bee. There is little fact 

 and much fable in his fourth Georgic. If he had 

 ever kept bees himself, or even visited an apiary, it 

 is hard to see how he could have believed that the 

 bee in its flight abroad carried a gravel stone for 

 ballast. 



" And as when empty barks on billows float, 

 With sand}^ ballast sailors trim the boat ; 

 So bees bear gravel stones, whose poising weight 

 Steers through the whistling winds their steady flight; " 



or that, when two colonies made war upon each 



other, they issued forth from their hives led by 



their kings and fought in the air, strewing the 



ground with the dead and dying : — 



" Hard hailstones lie not thicker on the plain, 

 Nor shaken oaks such show'rs of acorns rain." 



