266 THE HONEY-BEE. 



keeper, the turning round of every hive that belonged 

 to the departed, and this just at the moment the 

 corpse is being carried out of the house. We do not 

 pretend to explain this curious fancy. It may have 

 originated in an experiment to avert the supposed 

 disastrous connection between the bees and the death 

 of their owner. Anything would seem to do for a 

 charm to minds imbued with superstition. 



Borlase, in his Antiquities of Cornwall, mentions 

 one other superstition of apiarians of that county. 

 He says : " The Cornish to this day invoke the 

 spirit Browny when their bees swarm ; and think 

 that their crying 'Browny, Browny/ will prevent 

 their returning to their former hive, and make them 

 pitch and form a new colony." 



It is not wonderful that the many extraordinary 

 facts connected with bees, coming at various times 

 under human observation, should have led to notions 

 of marvels, founded, not on observation, but on 

 fancy. There is a strong tendency in the human 

 mind to desire explanations of phenomena, and 

 where there has been no scientific training in ob- 

 servation, false deductions are easily arrived at, or 

 guesses as to causes are made, which have no 

 foundation in fact. Bee-keeping has, for the most 

 part, till in quite recent times, been chiefly in the 

 hands of people of the more ignorant classes, among 

 whom wonderful stories easily arise, are rapidly 

 propagated, and tenaciously believed. Any circum- 

 stances seeming to support a previously established 

 fancy would serve to increase the strength of super- 

 stition ; while any number of instances not corro- 

 borating prevailing ideas would be disregarded. But, 



