BOOK XI. XXII. 68-xxiv. 72 



XXII. They delight in the clash and clang of^o<»«*'o 

 bronze, and collect together at its summons ; which S.™^ 

 shows that they also possess the sense of hearing. 

 When their work is done and their brood rearcd, 

 though they have accomplished all their duty they 

 nevertheless have a ritual exercise to perform, and 

 they range abroad in the open and soar on high, 

 tracing circles in flight, and only when this is finished 

 do they return to take food. Their hfe at longest, Lifepenod 

 granted that hostile attacks and accidents are ReTtoration 

 encountered successfully, lasts seven years. It is ofdeadbees. 

 stated that the hives have never lasted in their 

 entirety beyond ten years. Some people think that 

 dead bees come to hfe again if they are kept indoors 

 in winter and then exposed to the heat of the sun 

 in spring and kept warm with hot fig-wood ashes ; 

 XXIII. but that when entirely lost they can be 

 restored by being covered with fresh ox-paunches 

 together with mud, or according to Virgil « with the 

 dead body of bullocks, just as wasps and hornets are 

 brought to hfe from horses' bodies and beetles from 

 those of asses, since nature can change some things 

 from one kind into another. But all these creatures 

 are seen to pair, and nevertheless their otfspring 

 possess almost the same nature as that of bees. 



XXIV. Wasps make their nests high up, of mud, Wasps. 

 and in them make cells of wax ; hornets make them 

 in caverns or underground ; all of these have 

 hexagonal cells, and make their combs of bark, hke 

 spiders' webs. The actual offspring are not uniform 

 but vary — one flies out while another is in the pupa 

 and another in the grub ; and all of these stages are 

 in the autumn, not the spring. They grow chiefly at 

 fuU moon. The wasps called ichneumon-flies — they 



475 



