210 LOVE OF BEES A PASSION. 



vu personne qui les aima mediocrement ; on se passionne pour 

 elks /" Or, if classic opinion and ancient practice weigh more 

 with them than " modern instances," let them remember how 

 that Aristomachus of Soles devoted fifty-eight years to their 

 study, how that Philiscus the Thracian spent his whole life 

 in forests for the purpose of observing them, and how, 

 finally, that Aristotle, Columella, and Pliny wrote of bees very 

 largely, if scarcely with more correctness than Virgil, their 

 poetic painter. 



But some there are (though not we hope amongst our 

 readers) with whom the tastes and pursuits of the wise and 

 good weigh as nothing, and with whom the intrinsic interest 

 attached to natural objects (could they even be forced to their 

 study) would go for nothing too. These have no minds for 

 the common wonderful no hearts for the natural poetic, with 

 both of which the works and ways of bees, and of insects in 

 general, are fully fraught. 



With such as these, vain would be the effort, 



" When * glows ' the sun, and ' hum ' the cheery bees, ^v 

 And all the air is full of odours warm, 



* * * * * 



To fill the vacant mind with ' wondrous things,' 



That Nature works in fields, and floods, and air."* f r . s4 



Supposing such despisers of Nature to be, as they commonly 

 are, worshippers of Mammon, how can we possibly contrive to 

 awaken their interest in the economy of bees ? Why, only 



* Howitt's Martyr. 



