50 BRITISH BEES. 



flight. Even as Linnaeus constructed a floral clock to 

 indicate the succession of hours by the expansion of 

 the blossoms of flowers^ so might a Beethoven or a Men- 

 delssohn—the latter in the spirit of his philosophical 

 ancestor — note down the several sounds of the hum of 

 the many kinds of bees to the construction of a scale 

 of harmonic proportions, whose ^Eolian tones, heard in 

 the fitfulness of accidental reverberation amidst the soli- 

 tudes of nature, repeatedly awaken in the mind of the 

 entomologist the soothing sensation of a soft, volup- 

 tuous, but melancholy languor, or exhilarate him with 

 the pleasing feeling of brisk liveliness and impatient 

 energy. 



It is rarely that a bee is seen to walk, although a 

 humble-bee or hive bee may be seen crawling sometimes 

 from flower to flower on the same footstalk, but they 

 are never good pedestrians. They convey themselves 

 upon the wing from blossom to blossom, and even on 

 proceeding home they alight close to the aperture of 

 their excavated nidus, to which an unerring instinct 

 seems to guide them. There occasionally they will 

 meet with the intrusive parasite, to whom some genera 

 {Anlhophora, Colletes) give immediate battle, and usually 

 succeed in repulsing the interloper, who patiently awaits 

 a more favourable opportunity to effect her object. 



Bees are exceedingly susceptible of atmospheric 

 changes; even the passage of a heavy cloud over the 

 sun will drive them home ; and if an easterly wind pre- 

 vail, however fine the weather may otherwise be, they 

 have a sort of rheumatic abhorrence of its influences, 

 and abide at home, of which I have had sometimes woful 

 experience in long unfruitful journeys. 



The cause would seem to be the deficiency of electri- 

 city in the air, for if the air be charged, and a westerly 



