34> HABITS AND INSTINCTS OP ANIMALS. CHAP. I. 



ing parts, and then pursued an easy unobstructed course 

 with the remainder.* 



(40.) Under the head of instinct, we may here 

 notice a most singular story of bees, related by Stedman. 

 We should not have given it place, but for the general 

 accuracy of this traveller, and from the very pointed 

 manner in which its veracity is vouched for. It will 

 certainly amuse the reader, if it fails to convince him 

 that bees know those who live about their nests. " On 

 one occasion, I was visited, at my hut, by a neighbouring 

 gentleman, whom I conducted up my ladder ; but he 

 had no sooner entered my aerial dwelling, than he leaped 

 down from the top to the ground, roaring like a mad- 

 man with agony and pain ; after which he instantly 

 plunged his head into the river. I soon discovered the 

 cause of his distress to be an enormous nest of wild 

 bees, or wassee-wassee, in the thatch, directly above my 

 head, as I stood within my door ; when I immediately 

 took to my heels, as he had done, and ordered the slaves 

 to demolish them without delay. A tar mop was now 

 brought, and the devastation just going to commence, 

 when an old negro stepped up, and offered to receive 

 any punishment I should decree, if ever one of these 

 bees should sting me in person. ' Massera,' said he, 

 ' they would have stung you long ago, had you been a 

 stranger to them ; but they being your tenants, and 

 allowed to build upon your premises, they assuredly 

 know both you and yours, and will never hurt either 

 you or them/ I instantly assented to the proposition; 

 and, tying the old black man to a tree, ordered my boy 

 Quaco to ascend the ladder quite naked ; which he did, 

 and was not stung. I then ventured to follow ; and I 

 declare, upon my honour, that even after shaking the 

 nest, which made its inhabitants buzz about my ears, 

 not a single bee attempted to sting me. I next released 

 and rewarded him for the discovery. This swarm of 

 bees I afterwards kept unhurt as my body-guards. They 

 have made many overseers take a desperate leap for my 

 Kirby and Spence's Introd. to Entomology, vol. ii. p. 522. 



