174 THE ART OF TRAIXIXG ANIMALS. 



may venture, sire, to reply frankly/' returned that personage, 

 " I suspect the great Napoleon to have secreted himself about 



the person of her serene highness, the Princess F /' The 



" highness " thus named, feeling anything but " serene " at the 

 thought of affording quarters to such an intruder, made a hasty 

 retirement to her own apartments, whence, after a brief retire- 

 ment with her cameriste, she smilingly returned to the royal 

 presence, bringing some object held delicately between her 

 thumb and finger, which she cautiously made over to the pro- 

 fessor. ^^ Alas ! sire," exclaimed the latter, after a moment's 

 glance at what he thought was his discovered treasure, ^' this 

 is a wild flea and not the great Napoleon !" And the exhibi- 

 tion was brought to an ignominious conclusion. 



We once heard of a performance somewhat akin to our pro- 

 fessor's. At a certain boarding school that we attended years ago, 

 we noticed our room-mate one morning examining the bed in a 

 manner to indicate beyond doubt that he was in search of an 

 Insect which is not usually a subject of conversation in polite 

 society. Fortunately for the credit of the school he found 

 none. In answer to our expression of surprise at his evident 

 disappointment at there being none, he explained that he wanted 

 to show us a splendid trick he had invented at home ; and he 

 went on to describe how he had often amused himself by gluing 

 one end of a string to the back of an unfortunate bug, while to 

 the other end was hitched a miniature model of a cart, made of 

 paper. This, he said, was capital sport, especially when he made 

 two of these- teams race, and pricked the steeds with a needle to 

 make them lively. This is the only example of bed-bug train- 

 ing we are able to record. 



A very useful thing for farmers is the power of handling bees 

 without liability to be stung. Many persons imagine this to be 

 some gift or mysterious influence possessed by the successful 

 operator, while others suppose it to be derived from some won- 

 derful secret possessed by him. Though this '^ secret" is 

 really quite a simple matter, the fact that a speculator has 

 l)een selling it to bee keepers at the modest price of ten dollars, 

 shows that it is an interesting subject, and we propose to give 

 it to the reader without exacting any fee. 



Let us suppose you have a particularly irritable colony in one 

 of the modern hives, from which you desire to obtain the honey. 

 The treatment must vary a trifle according to the particular 

 design and arrangement of the hive, but the following direc- 

 tions, with very slight modifications, will answer for all. First 

 confine the bees in the hive, and rap on the side of it with the 

 palms of your hands or a small stick. The first efforts of the 



