WILD BEES IN AMERICA. 131 



It is curious how places have become famed for one 

 production, and continue to be so, while the genera- 

 tions of man pass away ; nay, while the very laws 

 and institutions of the countr)- have been overthrown. 

 A feeble plant may thus, in its descendants, survive 

 the " wreck of empires," for Nature is ever fresh, 

 vigorous, and unchanged, while human monuments 

 crumble into dust. While Greece, at the present 

 time, 



" Is Greece, but living Greece no more ;" 



the honey of Hymettus retains all its former celebrity. 

 Athens is no longer the abode of arts, eloquence, 

 literature, or science, — but 



" still his honied wealth Hymettus yields ; 



There the blythe bee his fragrant fortress builds ; 

 The free-bom wanderer of the mountain air." 



Childe Harold, Canto II. St. 87. 



Washington Irving, in his " Tour on the Pi-airies," 

 has given a very animated description of a bee-hunt 

 in one of the great American forests, and states, in 

 the following words, a remarkable opinion, which is 

 held concerning the wild bees : — " The Indians con- 

 sider them the harbingers of the white man ; and 

 say, that in proportion as the bee advances, the In- 

 dians and the buffalo retire. We are always accus- 

 tomed to associate the hum of the bee-hive with the 



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