A MARVEL OF MARVELS. 165 



not ill attested anecdote ? The summoners here were the 

 united powers of fire and water the sturdy spirits of bees 

 the little contumacious tenants which refused to dislodge for 

 all their combined authority. 



Mr. Beddome, a respectable chemist of Tooley Street, Lon- 

 don, in a letter to the editor of the Times, which was copied 

 in the Times Telescope for 1822, thus writes: "I bought 

 twenty large hives, and a hogshead of Dutch honey in the 

 native state, not separated from the wax, which had been in 

 the warehouse above a year ; and, after emptying the hives 

 as well as I could, I boiled them for a considerable time in 

 water, to obtain the honey from between the interstices. A 

 considerable number of bees, mixed with honey, floated on 

 the surface of the water. These I skimmed off, and placed 

 on flag-stones outside my laboratory, which was at the top of 

 the house, exposed to a July meridian sun. You may imagine 

 my astonishment, when in half an hour I saw scores of these 

 bees, that had been for months in a state of suffocation, and 

 then well boiled, gradually come to life and fly away. There 

 were so many of them that I closed the door, fearing that 

 they might be disposed to return, and punish me for the bar- 

 barous usage they had received at my hands." 



The above we must confess to be a marvel of marvels ; 

 but there is something scarcely less wonderful in the stubborn- 

 ness with which the vital sparks of many insects have been 

 known to hold out within the tiny citadels of their bodies 



