agreeable surprise, fonnd a second or tie same : she strove, by 

 entering further into the crowd, to escape me, which I was 

 fully determined against, and apprehending her without any 

 further ceremony or the least apology, I reconducted her with 

 a great number of the populace into the hive. And now the 

 melancholy scene began to change, and gave way to one 

 infinitely more agreeable and pleasant. 



" The bees presently missing their queen, began to dislodge, 

 and repair to the hive, crowding into it in multitudes, and in 

 the greatest hurry imaginable; and in the space of two 

 or three minutes, the maid had not a single bee about her, 

 neither had she so much as one sting, a small number of which 

 would have qnicHy stopped her breath." 



And now for a description of the terrible weapon, which, for 

 all that is no thicker than a needle's 

 point, is a terror to grown men. 

 With the exception, perhaps, of its 

 eyes, no part of the bee's anatomy 

 is more curiously beautiful than its 

 sting ; — seen through a microscope 

 of low power, it presents the ap- 

 pearance of a tiny thorn slightly 

 curved and tapering to inscrutable 

 fineness. This, however, is not the 

 actual sting, but the mere scabbard 

 which contains a distinct pair of 

 darts. To use a clumsy comparison, 

 the sheath is only used as a cobbler 

 uses his awl preparatory to insert- 

 ing a sewing-bristle in the hole 

 made. Seen nnder a very powerful 

 microscope, the two darts in ques- 

 tion are found to bear eight notches, 

 or barbs, which prevent them from 

 being released too quickly from the 

 bWo of abdomen, protecting the part attacked. But the puncture 

 2. The'eameirith the Bting thnist made by this complicated set of 

 8. "The blades of the Bting more i^stnuuents is the simplest part of 

 hiKhly magnifled. the affair — the terrible dart is pu^- 



tS sheaih holcUng two blades, ^oned. Situated at the root of the 

 sting there is a little bag filled with 

 an acrid fluid, generally supposed to be formic acid. At the 

 moment when the double dart enters the wound made by the 



7S6 



MAGNIMBII STniQ OF BEE. 



1. Flattened plates ou the nnder- 

 bdo: 



