BEE BASKETS. 199 



either resting or still busied in domestic occupation. From 

 four to ten in the morning are, in the warmer months, the 

 usual working hours of bees ; but in the spring, or when 

 newly entered on the occupation of a hive, they labour abroad 

 incessantly from morn till evening. 



A sprinkling of workers have, however, kept on wing ; 

 and close at hand, from a border of mignionette, we hear the 

 voice of the " Oriental Deburah," humming cheerfully of 

 pleasure mingled with labour ; and who in this busy little 

 creature can doubt their union, as we see her rolling amidst 

 her golden riches, adroitly brushing the precious dust from 

 off her antlers into the curious panniers with which her 

 thighs are furnished to receive it ? 



Now, her baskets are full laden, heaped with orange pollen 

 high above their brims ; but an elastic fringe of hairs by 

 which these are surrounded hinders their contents from being 

 overturned. Our collector's task is completed for the morning, 

 and thus laden without, and doubtless lined within, by a full 

 measure of the nectared juices, " sucked from buds and 

 bells," she takes wing, and makes so light of all her lading, 

 that straight as an arrow from a bow (and eke as swiftly) she 

 cuts the air, even in the wind's eye, in the exact direction of 

 her straw-built home. 



How is her unerring flight directed ? Kirby thinks it is her 

 senses, aided by memory, which conduct the bee in her return- 

 ing course. But surely no senses with which we are acquainted, 



