10 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



swarms of bees will readily do. They are spoken 

 of more as enriching the neighbourhood generally, 

 by augmenting the number of bees abroad, than 

 as conducing to the well-being of any particular 

 bee-owner. 



Herein, no doubt, is to be found a clue to the 

 whole mystery. If it was not the honey-bee — the 

 Apis mellifica of modern naturalists — which was 

 generated from the entombed body of Virgil's un- 

 fortunate bull-calf, what other insect, closely re- 

 sembling a bee, could have been produced under 

 those conditions ? The answer has been readily 

 given by several naturalists of our own time. 

 There is a fly, called the drone- fly, which exactly 

 meets the difficulty. He is so like the ordinary 

 honey-bee that on one occasion, and that recently, 

 he was mistaken for the genuine insect by one 

 calling himself a bee-expert, and holding a diploma 

 officially entitling him to the use of that name. 

 This drone-fly would have behaved almost exactly 

 as Virgil's calf-bred bees are said to have behaved, 

 and according to the various descriptions of the 

 matter given by other writers living before and 

 since. He would issue forth in a dense cloud imme- 

 diately his natal prison-doors were opened, and he 

 would comport himself in other ways exactly as enu- 

 merated. Finally, he would beget himself joyously 

 to the open country, as a swarm of bees would do ; 

 and once more the Virgilian theory of bee-produc- 

 tion would meet with its seeming verification. 



