6 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



the hurtful nature of burnt crab-shells ; and tells 

 us that in windy weather bees will carry abou^ 

 little pebbles as counterpoises, " as ships take in 

 sand-ballast when they roll deep in the tossing 

 surge." 



He was a firm believer in the Divine origin of 

 bees. To all the ancients the honey-bee was a 

 perpetual miracle, as much a sign and token of an 

 omnipotent Will, set in the flowery meadows, as 

 is the rainbow, to modern pietists, set in the sky. 

 While all other creatures in the universe were 

 seen to produce their kind by coition of the sexes, 

 these mysterious winged people seemed to be 

 exempt from the common law. Virgil, copying 

 from much older writers, says, "they neither 

 rejoice in bodily union, nor waste themselves in 

 love's languors, nor bring forth their young by 

 pain of birth; but alone from the leaves and 

 sweet-scented herbage they gather their children 

 in their mouths, thus sustaining their strength of 

 tiny citizens." 



Just as marvellous, however — at least to the 

 modern entomologist — will appear the belief, wide- 

 spread among the ancients, and shared by Virgil, 

 that swarms of bees can be spontaneously gener- 

 ated from the decaying carcass of an ox. Virgil 

 professes to derive his account of the matter from 

 an old Egyptian legend, and he gives careful 

 directions to bee-keepers of what he seems never 

 to doubt is an excellent method for stocking an 



