302 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
of Ovid which attributes to it a far more venerable 
antiquity. ‘They report,’ says the poet, “ that 
honey was discovered by Bacchus. He was proceed- 
ing from the sandy Hebrus, accompanied by the 
Satyrs, and they were now come to Rhodope and the 
flowery Pangeeum. The cymbal-bearing hands of the 
attendants gave forth a clang. Behold, impelled by 
the sound, unknown winged creatures swarm together, 
and the sounds which the brasses produce, the bees 
pursue. Bacchus collects them as they flit about, 
and shuts them up in a hollow tree, and he has his 
reward in the discovery of honey.”* There follows 
a rich passage about Silenus getting stung by thou- 
sands of insects on his bald head, through too eagerly 
seeking after the new treasure, and his being then 
directed by Bacchus to smear his face with clay—a 
remedy for stinging which we have not included among 
our specifics. But to return to the tanging. It is 
clear, not from this mythological story alone, but from 
what immediately follows in our own author, that this 
clamour does affect the bees, but affects them in the 
wrong way; so we leave the question for further 
decision to those better versed in antiquarian lore. 
Mr. Taylor continues that as regards the bees the 
proceeding is worse than useless, as it frequently 
prevents thew settling so soon as they would do if 
*This passage occurs at the 736th line of the Third Book of the 
Fasti. The translation, slightly varied, is taken from one prepared by 
the present editor for the Key to Dr. Smith’s Principia Latina, Part 
III. Another sentence occurring in the same work may here be 
cited as illustrating an ancient mode of depriving hives ; “What [joy] 
when the swarms are flying from the yew-boughs placed beneath them, 
that the combs may be withdrawn and relieve the bending osiers!” 
(Kem. Amor. 185). 
