THE BEE NATION. 263 



The certainty with which bees find their way back to their 

 hive after foraging proves their excellent memory. As a 

 bullet from a gun they fly by the shortest way to their 

 beloved home, for instance, at the sudden approach of a 

 storm. This power of finding their way back has indeed a 

 limit, and it is said that bees which have gone to a greater 

 distance than half-an-hour or an hour from the hive, easily 

 lose their way on returning. Therefore they are the fonder 

 of a flowering field or similar spot the nearer it is to the 

 hive, even omitting that such nearness spares both time and 

 strength. Perhaps they fear sudden gusts of wind so much, 

 as was before mentioned, because these drive them far 

 enough away from home to make return difficult or' impos- 

 sible. Whether, as Virgil says in his famous poem on 

 bees, in places where the wind threatens them dangerously, 

 they try to save themselves by lifting little stones and bits- 

 of earth from the ground with their feet and in this way 

 oppose a better resistance to the waves of the air, just as a 

 ship laden with ballast resists the waves of the sea better 

 than an empty one is not yet certain. But let Virgil him- 

 self tell his observation in connexion with his description of 

 the bees' flight : 



"At morn like soldiers pour they from their gates, 

 And not a bee behind then idle waits, 

 But when the eventide now warns to stay 

 Their gathering honey on the plain, then they 

 Fly homewards, and fresh strength from food derive. 

 A buzzing rises, and around the hive 

 And by its entrance-door they hum ; but when 

 They've settled on their couches, all is then 

 Hushed for the night's repose, and kindly sleep 

 Comes o'er their weary limbs. They ever keep 

 Close to the hive when rain-clouds low'r on high ; 

 When east winds blow ne'er do they trust the sky, 

 But safe beneath their tiny city's towers, 

 And round their home fresh water from the showers 

 They get, or short excursions try, and buoyed 

 Oflimes by little pebbles, through the void 

 Of heaven fly steadily ; so rocking boats 

 In tossing seas take ballast in." 



[Loc. cit., pp. 28, 29.] 



No less poetically, but more briefly and more strikingly than 

 Virgil, the great poet Shakspere describes the well-ordered 

 life and doings of the bee State, putting the following into 

 the mouth of the Archbishop of Canterbury (from the stand- 



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