APPENDIX. 26s 



Messrs. George Neighbour and Sons, 127, High Holborn, and 

 149, Regent Street, London, inventors and manufacturers of 

 improved bee-hives for taking honey without the destruction of 

 the bees. The savage knows where to find the nest of the wild 

 bee, and how to get at his honey ; but all the improvement upon 

 the rovetousness of the savage made by the long after ages of the 

 world to modern times, was to find the means of luring the 

 pattern of industry to a convenient atelier, where he might be 

 more easily first murdered and then robbed. Their habits early 

 attracted the attention of some of the best observers of ancient as 

 well as modem times. Cicero and Pliny tell of the philosopher 

 Hyliscus quitting human society, and retiring to the desert to con- 

 template their peaceful industry. The ancient poet, in his Sie ijos 

 vobis, plaintively sings over bee and beast living, or rather dying, 

 not for themselves, but the lord of creation, yet was it left to 

 modern times — ^very modern times — to join the sentiment of 

 Jiumanity to the rapacity of the barbarian. Mr. Neighbour 

 has a very complete collection of specimens of the ingenious and 

 successful contrivances in the construction of hives for the double 

 object of preserving the honey and the life of the bee, and also 

 subsidiarily of promoting its comfort during its busy and usefiil 

 life. We are not allowed to forget here that we have residing in 

 our city one of the first apiarians in the kingdom— Mr. Thomas 

 Woodbury, of Mount Radford. If the bee-philosophy be his 

 hobby, we must recollect that all great discoveries and improve- 

 ments owe their existence to men who had the power and the will 

 to concentrate their faculties upon a single object. One proof oi 

 his genius in this his favourite department of action, is seen 

 among this collection of Mr. Neighbour's, in the " Woodbury 

 Unicomb Hive." It might be, when closed up, for aught that 

 appears, a neat case of books ; but on opening two doors of the 

 Venetian blind pattern, back and front, we see between the glass 

 walls the insect city exposed to view, with all the population in 

 action. There it may be seen 



