1904 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



137 



sudden that the weather is too tempes- 

 tuous. 



"You know," says Raton to Bernard, 

 I could have taken off a super if it 

 had been necessary, but I didn't want 

 to do it." 



The following Sunday Raton, the 

 less brave of the two, after a timid 

 reconnaissance, judges it prudent to 

 lie down in the shade rather than trou- 

 ble the Sabbath repose of their high- 

 nesses, the princesses of Cyprus. 

 Bernard, on the other hand, to whom 

 a good dinner had given an indomit- 

 able courage (perhaps a glass of old 

 Neufachatel had also contributed a lit- 

 tle) — Bernard, then, advances boldly 

 against the enemy — pardon, against 

 his friends, the Syrians. With his 

 shirt sleeves rolled up, his arms bare, 

 a strong pocket knife in his hand, and 

 a fine long-bladed knife (to which he 

 is very partial) at his belt, calm and 

 resolute, he was truly beautiful to look 

 upon. In vain the fanfare of the en- 

 emy plays its most war-like marches; 

 neither "Sempach" nor "Roll drums" 

 succeed in making him quail, nor even 

 budge, nor cause him to make a single 

 useless gesture. 



But all this was only the skirmish 

 of the advance guard. Two or three 

 combs had already been taken from 

 the super and Bernard was on the 

 point of shouting victory, when sud- 

 denly the charge sounded. The main 

 Dod.v of the army, then the rear guard 

 tself, takes the field. The maneuver 

 fails, the line must fall back, as the 

 ood Lafontaine says, that is, capitu- 

 ate. Furious, stung, defeated, Bern- 

 ird beats a retreat. But the outraged 

 inemy come out of their citadel, pass 

 )ver a high house, and attack people 

 md animals on the neighboring road, 

 oon the sharp cries of women mix 

 «''ith the furious howling of dogs. The 

 :ats, even, make disorderly jumps and 

 he fowls disappear with flapping 

 ings. Night atone stops the cembat 

 nd puts an end to the carnage. 

 Like Charles the Bold after Gi'and- 

 on, Bernard dreams only of venge- 

 nce. Under cover of the shades of 

 dglit, no longer with his face bare, 

 ut clothed with a veil, arms and legs 

 ell wrapped, armed with a terrible 

 utomatic smoker whence a cloud of 

 moke issues, and with an immense 



watering-pot filled with ice-water, he 

 starts toward his beloved Syrians. 

 Blinded with smoke, inundated with 

 cataracts of ice-water, they beg an 

 armistice. But their cruel enemy re- 

 moves a super in one piece and carries 

 it twenty paces away. At the sivliv 

 of this abduction all unanimously 

 swear then and there to vanquish or 

 to die, and they pour forth to the as- 

 sault; the enemy, like Charles at Mor- 

 at, is still obliged to flee. 



Like him, Bernard, furious that there 

 vile S.yrians had robbed him of his 

 fame for invincibility, decides to re- 

 turn to the charge, or at least to at- 

 tack the separate contingent which 

 was at the foot of the tree. And what 

 time was that? At three o'clock in the 

 morning when the enemy was sleep- 

 ing innocently. Tl'uth obliges me to 

 say that this time he carried off the 

 victory, contrary to what happened to 

 Charles the Bold at Nancy. It will 

 be well to add that this attack much 

 resemlded an ambush. 



The war-horse perished the follow- 

 ing winter. Bernard claims that it 

 died a natural death. Others say — but 

 sh . . Let us not slander him. 



Washington, D. C, April 8. lf»04. 



NO FUNICS IN ALGERIA. 



By. .John Hewitt. 



DEAR Mr Hill:— Will you allow me 

 to correct those paragraphs in 

 American Bee-Keeper on pages 

 100 and 101 under the heading "Alge- 

 ria'' respecting "Punic" bees. There 

 are no Punic bees in Algeria any more 

 than there are Italians in Cyprus. 

 Algerian bees are very bad temi>ered 

 and somewhat darker in color than 

 Punics. Mr. T. W. Cowan was the fir.st 

 to try to get them tried instead of the 

 real thing and told his readers in 1801 

 where to get them in Algeria and dis- 

 cribed the bees of Tunis as "impure." 

 Since then there have been sevei-al at- 

 tempts to pass off the bees of Algeria, 

 Morocco and Minorca as the same 

 race. Punicg are as different to the«e 

 races as possible — far more so than 

 Italians are to Cyprians — while now 

 owing to Mr. Cowan being the mrans 

 of getting Carniolans imported into 

 Tunis, it is impossible to get them 

 really pure from Tunis now. 



