THE FOUNDATION OF THE CITY 8i 



must be there where the light shines clearest ; and they 

 act in accordance, and persist in too logical action. To 

 them glass is a supernatural mystery they never have met 

 with in nature ; they have had no experience of this 

 suddenly impenetrable atmosphere ; and, the greater their 

 intelligence, the more inadmissible, more incomprehensible, 

 will the strange obstacle appear. Whereas the feather- 

 brained flies, careless of logic as of the enigma of crystal, 

 disregarding the call of the light, flutter wildly hither and 

 thither, and, meeting here the good fortune that often 

 waits on the simple, who find salvation there where the 

 wiser will perish, necessarily end by discovering the friendly 

 opening that restores their liberty to them. 



44 



The same naturalist cites yet another proof of the 

 bees' lack of intelligence, and discovers it in the following 

 quotation from the great American apiarist, the venerable 

 and paternal Langstroth : " As the fly was not intended 

 to banquet on blossoms, but on substances in which it 

 might easily be drowned, it cautiously alights on the edge of 

 any vessel containing liquid food, and warily helps itself, 

 while the poor bee, plunging in headlong, speedily perishes. 

 The sad fate of their unfortunate companions does not in 

 the least deter others who approach the tempting lure, 

 from madly alighting on the bodies of the dying and the 

 dead, to share the same miserable end ! No one can under- 

 stand the extent of their infatuation until he has seen a 

 confectioner's shop assailed by myriads of hungry bees. I 



L 



