AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE. 51 



many times before I chanced upon its retreat ; and 

 then I was following a line of bees. I lost the bees 

 but I got the gentians. How curiously this flower 

 looks, with its deep blue petals folded together so 

 tightly — a bud and yet a blossom. It is the nun 

 among our wild flowers, a form closely veiled and 

 cloaked. The buccaneer bumble-bee sometimes tries 

 to rifle it of its sweets. I have seen the blossom witb 

 the bee entombed in it. He had forced his way into 

 ihe virgin corolla as if determined to know its secret, 

 but he had never returned with the knowledge he had 

 gained. 



After a refreshing walk of a couple of miles we 

 reach a point where we will make our first trial — a 

 high stone wall that runs parallel with the wooded 

 ridge referred to, and separated from it by a broad 

 field. There are bees at work there on that golden- 

 rod, and it requires but little manoeuvring to sweep 

 one into our box. Almost any other creature rudely 

 and suddenly arrested in its career and clapped into 

 a cage in this way would show great confusion and 

 alarm. The bee is alarmed for a moment, but the bee 

 has a passion stronger than its love of life or fear of 

 death, namely, desire for honey, not simply to eat, 

 but to carry home as booty. " Such rage of honey in. 

 their bosom beats," says Virgil. It is quick to catch 

 the scent of honey in the box, and as quick to fall 

 to filling itself. We now set the box down upon the 

 wall and gently remove the cover. The bee is head 

 and shoulders in one of the half-filled cells, and is 

 oblivious to everything else about it. Come rack, 

 come ruin, it will die at work. We step back a few- 

 paces, and sit down upon the ground so as to bring 

 the box against the blue sky as a background. In 



