VII 



THE STING 



The ancients were as familiar with the stings of bees 

 from a practical point of view as we are, but they were 

 more concerned in discovering a .moral than a scientific 

 reason for these inflictions, as were their successors, and 

 even as late as the seventeenth century we find Moffett as 

 puzzled over it as are a certain class of people to-day over 

 the use of the mosquito to man, he and they beheving that 

 every living thing was created specially and wholly for the 

 benefit of the genus homo. 



After searching long for some good use in the sting of 

 the bee Moffett was reduced to the following statement : 



"The Ancients (that we may prove the sting of bees 

 to be converted to some good use) were wont to punish 

 cheaters with them on this manner : They stripped the 

 malefactor stark naked, and besmeared his body all over 

 with honey, which done, and his hands and feet being 

 bound, they exposed him to the heat of the scorching sun, 

 that what with the piercing raies beating upon his body, 

 what with the stinging of the bees and flies, and their often 

 stabbing and wounding him, he did at length suffer a death 

 answerable to his life. But if you would indeed resolve to 

 go sting-free, or at least heal yourself being stung ; expel out 

 of your minde, idleness, impiety, theft, malice; for those 

 that are defil'd with those vices, they set upon to chuse as 

 it were, and out of natural instinct." 



