Ill] OF BEES AND APIARIES 327 



^erithace.^ They all live as in an army, sleeping 

 and working in regular and equal turns, and they 

 send out what we may call colonies, and the leaders 

 [ofthese colonies] get certain things done to the sound 

 of their voice, imitating as it were the trumpet used 

 for an army. And this happens when they have 

 signals for peace or war which they make to one 



10 another. But, Merula, I am afraid our friend Axius 

 here is dying with impatience as he listens to these 

 details of natural history, since I have said nothing 

 about the profit, and so in the race I hand on the 

 torch ^ to you. 



So Merula began : About the profit, I have that 



^ Erithace. Pliny (xi, 7) devotes a chapter to the explanation 

 of this and other special terms: Privia fundamenta comxnosin 

 vacant periti, secunda pissoceron, tertia propolln inter coria 

 cerasque magni ad niedicamina usus. ContTnosis est crusta prima 

 saporis amari. Pissoceros super earn venit, picatus modo sed 

 dilutior. . . . Propolis crassioris iam materiae, additis florihus — 

 Tiondum tamen cera, sed favorum stabilimentum qua omnes fri- 

 goris aut iniuriae aditus obstruuntur odore et ipsa etiamnum 

 gravi. . . . Praeter haec convehitur erithace quam aliqui Sanda- 

 racham, alii cerinthum vocant. Hie erit apum dum operantur 

 cibus qui ipse invenitur in favorum inanitatibus sepositus, et ipse 

 amari saporis. Most of this is from Aristotle, ix, 40, but the 

 erithace oi Pliny is not that of Varro, which corresponds to the 

 /itrvf of Aristotle. Varro (§ 23) describes erithace as that quo 

 favos extremes inter se conglutinant. 



''■ Lampada. A metaphor taken from the torch race (\a/iTra$i]- 

 Spofiia) at Athens, used -by Plato and Lucretius. Cf. the familiar 

 line of the latter : 



Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt. 

 For tibe cf. note on iii, 7, 11. 



