HISTORIC SKETCH. 



330 B.C. Observations of a scientific kind had, 

 however, been made with regard to these insects by 

 a philosopher of Asia Minor, who is said to have 

 devoted a long lifetime to watching their habits. 

 Unfortunately, the records of his studies in this 

 department of entomology have not survived to our 

 day. We have also to regret that later ages lost the 

 benefit of the labours of Philiscus of Thasos, who is 

 said to have abandoned the abodes of men for a 

 forest life, that he might learn all that was possible 

 of the nature and work of these creatures, which 

 seemed to him so marvellous in their structure and 

 their doings. It is Pliny the Elder — the well-known 

 Roman man of science, who lived near the beginning 

 of the Christian era — to whom we are indebted for 

 notices of the workers in natural history just men- 

 tioned, while he himself devotes some considerable 

 space in his own book to a description of the bee. 



Nearly a century earlier, Vergil, the poet of rural 

 life, as well as of loftier themes, wrote a charming 

 book — his Fourth Georgic— on the subject of these 

 our winged friends. We may smile at his wondrous 

 plan for securing a prodigious swarm, and modern 

 methods may claim far more reasonableness and 

 success than those he advocates in apiculture ; but we 

 may rejoice to see how bewitching was the pursuit of 

 bee-keeping nearly two millenniums ago, and how 

 true it has been through all the centuries, as the 

 French writer Gelieu says, " Beaucoup de gens aiment 

 les abeilles ; je n'ai vu personne qui les aima mediocre- 

 vient : on se passionne pour elles" 



The orator Cicero makes frequent reference 

 to them in his charming treatise on Old Age, 



