INTRODUCTION xv 



for beemanship in this category. The primaeval 

 huntsman must have found much difficulty in 

 bringing down his game, and still more in securing 

 it, when maimed, but yet capable of eluding final 

 capture. For this purpose some sort of retrieving 

 animal, fleeter of foot and more cunning than its 

 master, must have been even more necessary in 

 primaeval times than it is in the modern days of 

 the gun. There seems to be no evidence of man 

 indicating the most elementary civilisation without 

 sure signs also that he had trained and used some 

 sort of dog to help him in his daily food-forays. 

 But man must have existed long before civilisation 

 can be said to have come within age-long distance 

 of him. In these times, beset with enemies, he 

 must have built his hut nest-like in some high, 

 impregnable tree, out of reach of night-prowling 

 foes ; and it is scarcely conceivable that the dog 

 was his companion under these conditions. More 

 probably he lived, for the most part, on fruits and 

 honey-comb, and such of the small creatures as he 

 could capture with his naked hands. Thus, in 

 all likelihood, the first hunter was a bee-hunter. 

 Eolithic man may have had his own rocky fastness 

 or clump of hollow trees, where the wild bees con- 

 gregated ; and with the coming of each summer 

 he may have followed his swarms through the 



