APIDiE — BEES. 213 



(Bombus) is from tlie account of Josselyn of his voyages to 

 New England, printed in 1G74: "Near upon twenty years 

 since there lived an old planter near lUackpoint, who on a 

 Sunshine day about one of the clock lying upon a green bank 

 not far from his house, charged his Son, a lad of 12 years of 

 age, to awaken him when he had slept two hours ; the old 

 man falls asleep, and lying upon his back gaped with his 



mouth wide open enough for a Hawke to into it ; after 



a little while the lad sitting by spied a Humble-bee creeping 

 out of his Father's mouth, which taking wing flew quite out 

 of sight, the hour as the lad guest being come to awaken his 

 Father, he jagged him and called aloud Father, Father, it is 

 two o'clock, but all would not rouse him, at last he sees the 

 Humble-bee returning, who lighted upon the sleeper's lip 

 and walked down as the lad conceived into his belly, and 

 presently he awaked."^ 



The following, on the different species of Humble-bees, is 

 one of the popular rhymes of Scotland : 



The todlei'-tyke lias a- very gnde byke. 



And sae has the gairy I3eo ; 

 But weel's me on tbe little red-doiip, 



The best o' a' the three. 2 



When the Archbishop of St. Andrews was cruelly mur- 

 dered in 1679, " upon the opening of his tobacco box a living 

 humming bee flew out," which was explained to be a familiar 

 or devil. A Scottish woman declared that a child was poi- 

 soned by its grandmother, who, together with herself, were 

 ''in the shape of bume-bees," that the former carried the 

 poison ''in her cleugh, wings, and mouth." A great Bee 

 constantly resorted to another after receiving the Satanic 

 mark, and rested on it.^ 



An anecdote is related by M. Reaumur respecting the 

 thimble- shaped nest, formed of leaves, of the Carpenter-bee 

 (Apis centuncularisf), which is a striking instance of the 

 ridiculous superstition which prevails among the unedu- 

 cated, and which even sometimes has no slight influence on 

 those of better understandings. " In the beginning of July, 

 1136, the learned Abbe Nollet, then at Paris, was surprised 



1 Josselyn's Vor/., p. 121. 



2 Chambers' Fop. Rhi/mes of Scot., p. 292. Edit, of 1811, p. 172. 



3 Dalyell's Superst. of Scotland, p. 5G3. 



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