INSECTS. o 4 ., 



■each hand. Jerking it up the tree a little above his head, he set his f< 

 against the trunk, and, leaning back, began walking up it. It was won- 

 derful to see the skill with which he took advantage of the slightest irri 

 ularities of the bark or obliquity of the stem to aid his ascent, jerkino- the 

 stiff creeper a few feet higher when he had found a firm hold for his bare 



foot. It almost made me giddy to look at him as he rapidly got up 



thirty, forty, fifty feet above the ground, and I kept wondering how he 

 ■could possibly mount the next few feet of straight, smooth trunk. Still, 

 however, he kept on with as much coolness and apparent certainty as if 

 he were going up a ladder, till he got within ten or fifteen feet of the bees. 

 Then he stopped a moment, and took care to swing the torch (which hung 

 just at his feet) a little towards these dangerous insects, so as to send \\\> 

 the stream of smoke between him and them. Still going on. lie brought 

 himself under the limb, and, in a manner quite unintelligible to me, 9 

 ing that both hands were occupied in supporting himself by the creeper, 

 managed to get upon it. 



" By this time the bees began to be alarmed, and formed a dense, buz- 

 zing swarm just over him, but he brought the torch up closer to him, and 

 coolly brushed away those that settled on his arms or legs. Then stretch- 

 ing himself along the limb, he crept toward the nearest comb and swung the 

 torch just under it. The moment the smoke touched it, its color chang 

 in a most curious manner from black to white, the myriads of bees that 

 had covered it flying off and forming a dense cloud above and around. 

 The man then lay at full length along the limb, and brushed off the 

 remaining bees with his hand, and then drawing his knife cut off the 

 comb at one slice close to the tree, and attaching the thin cord to it, let it 

 down to his companions below. He was all this time enveloped in a crowd 

 of angry bees, and how he bore their stings so coolly, and went on with 

 his work at that giddy height so deliberately, was more than I could 

 understand. The bees were not evidently stupefied by the smoke or 

 driven away far by it, and it was impossible that the small stream from 

 the torch could protect his whole body when at work." These bees were 

 not stingless, like so many tropical bees, as Mr. Wallace found out by sad 

 experience, as after the combs had been let down, the bees became numer- 

 ous below, and some of them stung him severely. 



Of the stingless bees there are many species in South America. Mi. 

 Bates alone obtained forty-five. But though these forms cannot sting, thi 

 can bite severely. One noticeable peculiarity in many of these forms 

 their habit of gathering clay. They first scrape it up with their jaws, and 

 then the mass is passed back from one pair of feet to another, until at last 

 it rests on the broad joints of the hind pair of legs in the place where most 



