28 THE PASTORAL BEES. 



But there is no accounting for the taste of bees, as 

 Samson found when he discovered the swarm in the 

 carcass, or more probably the skeleton, of the lion he 

 had slain. 



In any given locality, especially in the more 

 wooded and mountainous districts, the number of 

 swarms that thus assert their independence forms 

 quite a large per cent. In the Northern States these 

 swarms very often perish before spring ; but in such 

 a country as Florida they seem to multiply, till bee- 

 trees are very common. In the West, also, wild 

 honey is often gathered in large quantities. I no- 

 ticed, not long since, that some wood-choppers on 

 the west slope of the Coast Range felled a tree that 

 had several pailfuls in it. 



One night on the Potomac a party of us unwit- 

 tingly made our camp near the foot of a bee-tree, 

 which next day the winds of heaven blew down, for 

 our special delectation, at least so we read the sign. 

 Another time while sitting by a waterfall in the leaf- 

 less April woods I discovered a swarm in the top of 

 a large hickory. I had the season before remarked 

 the tree as a likely place for bees, but the screen of 

 eaves concealed them from me. This time my for- 

 mer presentiment occurred to me, and, looking sharply, 

 sure enough there were the bees, going out and in a 

 large, irregular opening. In June a violent tempest 

 of wind and rain demolished the tree, and the honey 

 was all lost m the creek into which it fell. I hap- 

 pened along that way two or three days after th 



