262 



CHAPTER XI, 



MIGRATIONS OF INSECTS. 



THE shepherds of the Alps, as we learn from 

 Saussure, as soon as the snows are melted on the 

 sides of the mountains, transfer their flocks from the 

 valleys below to the fresh pasture revived by the 

 summer sun, in the natural parterres and patches of 

 meadow-land formed at the foot of crumbling rocks, 

 and sheltered by them from mountain storms ; and 

 so difficult sometimes is this transfer to be accom- 

 plished, that the sheep have to be slung 1 by means of 

 ropes from one cliff to another before they can be 

 stationed on the little grass-plot above *. A similar 

 artificial migration (if we may use the term) is 

 effected in some countries by the proprietors of bee- 

 hives, who remove them from one district to another, 

 that they may find abundance of flowers, and by this 

 means prolong the summer. Sometimes this transfer 

 is performed by persons forming an ambulatory 

 establishment, like that of a gypsey horde, and 

 encamping wherever flowers are found plentiful. Bee 

 caravans of this kind are reported to be not uncommon 

 in some districts of Germany ; and in parts of 

 Italy and France the transportation of bees was 

 practised from very early times. But a more singular 

 practice in such transportations was to set the 

 bee-hives afloat on a canal or river ; and we are 

 informed that, in France, one bee-barge was built of 

 capacity enough for from sixty to one hundred hives, 

 * Voyages dans les Alpes, 



