64 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



honey-bees seem to fly higher and to exhibit much more 

 activity than the great humble-bee : here in the Hmes they 

 must be thirty feet above the ground. Wasps also fre- 

 quently wing their way at a considerable elevation, and 

 thus it is that the hive-bee and the wasp so commonly 

 enter the upper windows of houses. When its load of 

 honey is completed, the bee, too, returns home in a nearly 

 straight line, high enough in the air to pass over hedges 

 and such obstacles without the labour of rising up and 

 sinking again. 



The heavy humble-bee is generally seen close to the 

 earth, and often goes down into the depths of the dry 

 ditches, and may there be heard buzzing slowly along 

 under the arch of brier and bramble. He seems to lose 

 his way now and then in the tangled undergrowth of the 

 woods ; and if a footstep disturbs and alarms him it is 

 amusing to see his desperate efforts to free himself hastily 

 from the interlacing grass-blades and ferns. 



When the sap is rising, the bark of the smaller shoots 

 of the lime-tree ' slips ' easily — i.e. it can be peeled in 

 hollow cylinders if judiciously tapped and loosened by 

 gentle blows from the back of a knife. The ploughboys 

 know this, and make whistles out of such branches, as they 

 do also from the willow, and even the sycamore in the 

 season when the sap comes up in its floodtide. 



It is difficult to decide at what time of the year the 

 park is in its glory. The may-flower on the great haw- 



