HAPPY FAMILIES. 175 



bees will be to escape from the hive ; finding this impossible 

 they will rush to their stores and till themselves with honey. 

 Should tlie rapping prove insufficient to frighten them and 

 cause them to fill themselves with honey, smoke from rotten 

 wood, which is the best, cotton rags, or tobacco, may be made 

 to enter the hive which will have the desired eifect. Bees will 

 never sting of their own accord when gorged with food, and in 

 this condition may be handled with impunity. 



When swarming, or out of the hive for any reason, they may 

 be '' tamed " by placing water well sweetened with sugar within 

 their reach. Bees can never resist the temptation and after 

 they have gorged themselves with this preparation they are as 

 harmless as when theu' sacks are filled with honey. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



"HAPPY families" — ENEMIES BY NATURE MADE FRIENDS 



BY ART. 



ONE of the most entertaining and popular features gf Bar- 

 num's Museum, during the many years of its existence, 

 was that miscellaneous collection of minor birds, beasts, and 

 reptiles, denominated the Happy Family. Here in a huge cage 

 are mingled many varieties of the animal kingdom which are, in 

 a state of nature, deadly enemies to ojne another. Exhibitions 

 of this kind are very rare in this country, though more common 

 in Europe. Probably the first one ever seen here was that 

 imported by Barnum in 1847, and which was the foundation of 

 the present collection ; though, like the boy's jack-knife which 

 first had a new blade and then a new handle, and then a new 

 blade again, it would be difficult to find any of the original 

 importation in the collection of the present day. It seem^s that 

 Barnum, at about the date we have mentioned, was in Scotland 

 " working " Tom Thumb, who was then on a grand exhibition 

 tour. In the neighborhood of Edinburgh he accidentally stumbled 

 across the Happy Family, which was then, though an excellent 

 collection of animals, a rather one-horse afi"air as an exhibition 

 by itself. The shrewd showman, ever on the lockout for novel- 

 ties or curiosities, genuine or otherwise, fancied he saw a good 

 speculation and bought the whole concern for $2,500, and 

 brought it in triumph to his museum in New York. 



