U AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN 



daughter came, and I heard the former 

 say, "Have you found her?" To this he re- 

 plied that he had not, but I still heard and 

 felt his steps on the grass, and finally he 

 said with considerable exultation in his tone : 

 "Here she is, the beauty! Look at her 

 before I let her run in." To this the 

 lady added with much delight: "Queenie, 

 Queenie, are you not pretty! Papa, will 

 she sting?" He then imparted the informa- 

 tion that a Queen of Honey Bees was armed 

 with a sting, shaped like a curved carving 

 knife, but that she used her weapon only 

 on a rival Queen, never on a human. Now, 

 the facts were that my Master took no risks 

 about absconding swarms in case of his ab- 

 sence when they emerged, and their final 

 departure for some hollow forest tree, and 

 that my mother's wings had been shorn on 

 one side of her shoulders so that she could 

 not fly. A little trial and she would sink 

 to the ground! She was not in that bunch 

 of bees at all! She was down in the grass 

 only a yard distant. The whole multitude 



