AT THE CITY GATES 61 
safely at home. Each hive is packed from floor 
to roof with tens of thousands of breathing, heat- 
producing creatures: the necessity for ventilation 
is quadrupled, and, far and wide in the bee- 
garden, the fanning armies are setting to their 
work with a will. 
The freshman at this fascinating branch of 
nature-study, brought out into the quiet night to 
hear such gargantuan music, is always strangely 
affected by it, some natures incredibly so. In all 
the great placid void of darkened hill and dale 
around him, in the whole blue arch overhead, alive 
with the flinching silver of the stars, there is no 
sound but a chance trill of a nightingale, the bark 
of a shepherd’s dog on the distant upland, or, now 
and then, the droning song of a beetle passing 
invisibly by. All the world seems at rest, save 
these mysterious people in the hives; and with 
them the sound of labour is only redoubled. 
Bending down to the nearest hive in the darkness, 
the note comes up to one like the angry roar of 
the sea. A light brought cautiously to bear upon 
it, discloses the alighting-board covered with rows 
of bees, working, as it were, for their lives; while 
other bees continually wander in and out of the 
entrance—the sentries that guard it night and day, 
just as soldiers guarded the gates of human cities 
in olden times. The novice at bee-craft, even 
the most staid and matter-of-fact, is invariably 
plunged into marvelling silence at the sight. But 
