PROPOLIS. 113 



242. In these instances, who can withhold his admiration 

 of the ingenuity and judgment of the bees? In the first case, 

 a troublesome creature gained admission to the hive, which, 

 from its miwieldiness, they could not remove, and which, from 

 the impenetrability of its shell, they could not destroy; here, 

 then, their only source was to deprive it of locomotion, and 

 to obviate putrefaction; both which objects they accomplished 

 most skillfully and securely, and, as is usual with these 

 sagacious creatures, at the least possible expense of labor and 

 materials. They applied their cement where alone it was re- 

 quired — roimd the verge of the shell. In the latter case, to 

 obviate the evil of decay, by the total exclusion of air, they 

 were obliged to be more lavish in the use of their embalming 

 material, and to case over the "slime-girt giant," so as to 

 guard themselves from his noisome smell. ^\Tiat means more 

 effectual could human wisdom have devised, under similar cir- 

 cumstances ■? 



343. In bygone days, it was a prevalent belief, that when 

 any member of a family died, the bees knew what had hap- 

 pened; and some were superstitious enough to put the hives 

 in mourning, to pacify their sorrowing occupants; imagining 

 that, unless this was done, the bees would never afterwards 

 prosper! It was frequently asserted that they sometimes 

 took their loss so much to heart, as to alight upon the coffin 

 whenever it was exposed. A clergyman told the writer that 

 he attended a funeral, where, as soon as the cofSn was brought 

 from the house, the bees gathered upon it so as to excite much 

 alarm. Some years after this occurrence, being engaged in 

 varnishing a table, the bees alighted upon it in such numbers, 

 as to conviijce him, that love of varnish, rather than sorrow 

 or respect for the dead, was the occasion of their conduct 

 at the funeral. How many superstitions, believed even by in- 

 telligent persons, might be as easily explained, if it were pos- 

 sible to ascertain as fully all the facts connected with them ! 



Whittier has written a little poem, "Telling the Bees," 

 a propos of their knowing of some one's death. 



