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JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 151 
trying to protect himself by rolling about and half burying himself 
among the swathes of new-mown grass, calling excitedly to his son, 
who stood convulsed with laughter (at what he afterwards styled “the 
old man’s harlequin antics),” ‘‘Come, drive him off, Jim”—-the pros- 
trated one vigorously whisking a bunch of grass about his ears— 
* Drive him off, or he’ll jab me! he’ll jab me!” then speedily, with 
loud emphasis, ‘‘ He Zas jabbed me!” followed by sensational retal- 
iatory flourishes of the hay wisps. 
Accidents have been known to occur, caused in a similar way 
to the above, and also when the horse hay rake was being used, that 
unfortunately did not end as farcially as the above narrated. One 
of our neighbors, when engaged plowing during the month of 
August, seven or eight years ago, was subject to so much annoyance 
from colonies of humble bees that had nested in different parts of 
the field, stinging his plow horses to such an extent as to render 
them unmanageable, that his only recourse was to search carefully 
over the field, spade in hand, and with fire and weapons drive off 
or put to death the aggressive hymenoptera tribe. 
Once as we were wending our way homeward about the gloaming 
time, after a day’s work in clearing off fallen timber on an acre of 
fresh cut down timber land, we chanced to pick upa piece of a 
broken branch, on the under side of which a very large humble bee 
had apparently taken up its quarters for the night. The bee was 
probably a queen of the species indicated, and perhaps in an ill- 
tempered mood for lack of courteous attendants or wooers ; how- 
ever, the untimely and rude interruption to the quietus must have 
created an instantaneous resentful purpose. The bee arose and 
flew with great force and directness towards our face, and planted 
an exquisitely painful sting on our forehead, and then immediately 
disappeared with angry buzzing flight into the dusky distance. The 
manner of the act indicated that bee indignation is quickly raised to 
a white heat by such flagrant infringement of ‘squatters’ rights,” 
and that (unlike the Foolish Virgins of scriptural celebrity) bees are 
accustomed when in repose always to keep their “powder dry.” 
The sting was a cause of severe pain, which lasted several hours, 
and was of a more acute sort than that resulting from the sting of 
the ordinary hive bee. ‘The incident served to show quick insect 
perception of the logic of ‘‘ cause and effect,” and that even unin- 
