250 The Honey-Makers 



around their fields in painted gondolas, and where the 

 river, that rolls down as far as from the swarthy Indians, 

 presses on the borders of quivered Persia, and fertiles ver- 

 dant Egypt with black silt, and pouring along divides itself 

 into seven different mouths, all the country grounds infal- 

 lible rehef on this art. First, a space of ground of small 

 dimensions, and contracted for this purpose, is chosen ; 

 this they strengthen with the tiling of a narrow roof and 

 confined walls, and add four windows of slanting light in 

 the direction of the four winds. Then a bullock, just bend- 

 ing the horns in his forehead, two years old, is sought out ; 

 whilst he struggles exceedingly they close up both his 

 nostrils and the breath of his mouth ; and when they have 

 beaten him to death, his battered entrails are crushed within 

 the hide, that remains entire. When dead they leave him 

 pent up, and lay under his sides fragments of boughs, 

 thyme, and fresh cassia. This is done when first the 

 zephyrs stir the waves, before the meadows blush with new 

 colors, before the chattering swallow suspends her nest upon 

 the rafters. Meanwhile the juices, warmed in the tender 

 veins, ferment ; and animals, wonderful to behold, first 

 short of their feet, and in a little while buzzing with wings, 

 swarm together, and more and more take to the thin air, 

 till they burst away like a shower poured from summer 

 clouds, or like an arrow from the whizzing string, when 

 the swift Parthians first begin the fight." 



It has been suggested, in explanation of the wide-spread 

 belief that bees were generated in dead bodies, that flies 

 were confounded with bees by the ancient naturalists, who 

 therefore believed that bees, like flies, were born from car- 

 rion. The old name given in England to the bee, the 

 honey fly, gives force to the suggestion, as also the fact that 

 the North American Indians called the honey bee the 

 white man's fly — showing how generally the two insects 

 have been confused with each other. 



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