I So BEE-FARMING. 



of the Pilgrim Fathers, is not known, though it has been 

 observed by the Indians to be never far distant from the 

 borders of civilisation. Long ago the invasion of Ken- 

 tucky by Boone and the other pioneer backw^oodsmen is 

 said to have been foretold by a Shawnee warrior, who, see- 

 ing a bee on the western bank of the Mississippi, warned 

 his tribe that before very long their hunting-grounds would 

 be invaded; and, later still, the settlement of California 

 was predicted by a Gumas Indian, on discovering a bee- 

 tree on the Gila river. In some of the south-western 

 states, the collection of wild honey, as an article of barter 

 or trade, has been made a business by some of the back- 

 woodsmen ; and as honey used to bring a quarter of a 

 dollar a gallon, and some of the bee-trees yielded from six 

 to a dozen gallons of honey, besides wax, it was not an 

 unprofitable pursuit. The taste that leads a man to take 

 delight in the boisterous music of a pack of deer-hounds, 

 as they drive the stag to a stand, or in the rough danger 

 of a bear-fight, is not a proper foundation upon which to 

 build the bee-hunter. The bee-hunter is of a pensive 

 turn, fond of solitude, fond of nature, delighting in flowers, 

 though perhaps not from a botanical point of view. If 

 he reads, he has probably read Burton's " Anatomy of 

 Melancholy;" most certainly he has read and re-read, 

 time after time, Izaak Walton's " Complete Angler," for 

 there is no such anomaly as a bee-hunter who is not also a 

 patient, skilful piscator. So fond is he of the silence of the 

 woods, whose stillness is only broken by the drowsy hum 

 of a bee, or the gentle chirp of a bird, that the occasional 

 sharp tap tap of the woodpecker sounds harshly to his ear. 

 On the bank of some navigable stream the bee-hunter 

 builds his log-cabin, fences in an acre or two of ground to 

 grow his vegetables upon, depends for meat upon his trusty 

 rifle, and for his bread upon his skill in detecting the stores 

 of the wild bees ; and, when he has collected three or four 



