ENEMIES OF BEES. 201 



situated near the dwelling, birds do not commit 

 any great ravages. MR ESPINASSE thinks that 

 in general they come only for dead bees and larvce, 

 which may have been thrown out of the hives. 

 But in America, according to MR. HECTOR ST. 

 JOHN, the king bird, the protector of corn-fields 

 from the depredation of crows, is a great de- 

 stroyer of bees. After shooting these birds, Mr. 

 St. John has found bees in their craws, from one 

 of which he took as many as a hundred-and-se- 

 venty-one : on laying them all on a blanket in 

 the sun, fifty-four of them returned to life, licked 

 themselves clean, and joyfully went back to their 

 hives. Many wonderful tales of this kind have 

 been told, such as the recovery of flies that had 

 been inclosed for a considerable time in bottles 

 of liquor (madeira). An instance of this is re- 

 lated by Wildman, who says his informant was a 

 very ingenious and accurate gentleman : that the 

 madeira had been brought, in bottle, from Vir- 

 ginia to London, and that the flies when exposed 

 to a warm sun for an hour or two, were so com- 

 pletely reanimated, as to take w r ing ; thus putting 

 to the test, as Wildman's friend observed, the 

 truth of the opinion, that a fly cannot be drowned. 

 A very marvellous tale was related last year in 

 the newspapers, of the recovery of some appa- 

 rently dead bees after the substance containing 

 them had been submitted to a considerable heat 

 K 5 



