PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 425 



the husbandmen can sow their land, sainlfohi is one of the first things 

 that is sown ; and as Upper Egypt is warmer than the Lower, the saint- 

 foin gets there first into blossom. At this time, bee-hives are transported 

 in boats from all parts of Egypt into the upper district, and are there 

 heaped in pyramids upon the boats prepared to receive them ; each being 

 numbered by the individual to whom it belongs. In this station they 

 remain some days : and when they are judged to have got in the harvest of 

 honey and pollen that is to be collected there, they are removed two or 

 three leagues lower down, where they remain the same time ; and so 

 they proceed till towards the middle of February, when, having tra- 

 versed Egypt, they arrive at the sea, from whence they are dispersed to 

 their several owners. 



A transportation of bee-hives, in some respects similar, prevails, as we 

 learn fi-om Mr. Willock, at the present day throughout Persia, Asia 

 Minor, and he believes Greece ; in which countries an inhabitant even of 

 a town will sometimes possess fifty or sixty hives, from the honey and 

 wax of which a considerable profit is derived. These hives are wicker- 

 work cylinders, two feet eight inches long by nine inches in diameter, 

 plastered inside and outside with cow-dung ; having one end filled up with 

 a circular earthenware plate, and the other with a circular wooden 

 door, in the middle of which is a small hole for the entrance of 

 the bees. In spring, when the herbage of the low country has become 

 parched, the proprietor of the hives, after closing them, conveys them 

 (six or seven being an ass load) to some village in the neighboring moun- 

 tains where fragrant shrubs abound ; and having sealed the doors, leaves 

 them in charge of a villager, whom he pays for watching them when he 

 removes them in October back to his home. Near villages in the moun- 

 tains of Sahund, in the vicinity of Tabreez, Mr. Willock has seen ranges 

 of these hives thus put out to board to the number of 500 or 600.^ 



John Hunter observes, that when the season for laying is over, that 

 for collecting honey comes on (he means, probably, for making the prin- 

 cipal collection of it) ; and that when the last pupa is disclosed, the cell 

 it deserts, after being cleaned, is immediately filled with it, and as soon as 

 full is covered with pure wax : but this only holds with respect to the 

 cells containing honey for winter use, those destined to receive that which 

 forms their food when bad weather prevents them from going out being 

 left open.^ Sometimes, when the year is remarkably favorable for collect- 

 ing honey, the bees will destroy many of the larvae to make room for it; 

 but they never meddle with the pupae. When no more honey is to be 

 collected, they remain quiet in the hive for the winter. Mr. Hunter found 

 that a hive grew lighter in a cold than in a warm week ; he found also 

 that in three months (from November 10th to February 9lh) a single hive 

 lost 72 oz, li dram.^ 



Water is a thing of the first necessity to these Insects ; but they are not 

 very delicate as to its quality, but rather the reverse ; often preferring 

 what is stagnant and putrescent to that of a running stream.'' I have 

 frequently observed them busy in corners moist with urine ; perhaps this 

 is for the sake of the saline particles to be there collected. 



» Gardener's Chronicle, 1841, p. 84. 



2 Philos. Trans. 1792, 160. Comp. Reaum. v. 450. 



' Reaum. ibid. 591. Hunter, ibid. 161. * Reaum. ibid. 697. 



36* 



