368 FEEDING. 



come so infatuated with such easy gatherings, as to lose all 

 discretion, and will perish by thousands, if the vessels which 

 contain the food are not furnished with floats, on which they 

 can safely stand to help themselves. 



As the fly was not intended to banquet upon the blossoms, 

 but on substances in which it might easily be drowned, it 

 alights most cautiously, on the edge of any vessel containing 

 liquid food, and warily helps itself: while the poor bee plung- 

 es in headlong, and 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 misera- 

 ble end ! No one can understand the full extent of their 

 infatuation, until he has seen a confectioner's shop assailed 

 by thousands and tens of thousands of hungry bees. I 

 have seen thousands strained out from the syrups in which 

 they had perished ; thousands more alighting even upon 

 the boiling sweets ; the floors covered, and windows dark- 

 ened with bees, some crawling, others flying, and others 

 still, so completely besmeared as to be able neither to 

 crawl nor fly ; not one bee in ten, able to carry home its ill- 

 gotten spoils, and yet the air filled with new hosts of thought- 

 less comers ! 



Those engaged in the manufacture of candy and syrups, 

 will find it to their interest, by fitting gauze wire windows 

 and doors to their premises, to save themselves from constant 

 loss and annoyance : for if only one bee in a hundred es- 

 capes with his load, the confectioner will be subjected, in the 

 course of the season, to serious loss. Tonce furnished a candy- 

 shop, with such protection, after the bees had commenced 

 their depredations ; who on finding themselves excluded, 

 alighted on the wire by thousands, squealing with vexation 

 and disappointment, as they vainly tried to force a passage 



