204 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
will cluster upon your head, or any other part of your 
body, and never attempt to sting you. I remember, when 
a boy, seeing the celebrated Wildman exhibit many feats 
of this kind, to the great astonishment and apprehension 
of the uninformed spectators. ‘The writer lately quoted 
(Thorley) was assisted once by his maid-servant to hive 
aswarm. Being rather afraid, she put a linen cloth as a 
defence over her head and shoulders. When the bees 
were shaken from the tree on which they had alighted, 
the queen probably settled upon this cloth ; for the whole 
swarm covered it, and then getting under it, spread them- 
selves over her face, neck, and bosom, so that when the 
cloth was removed she was quite a spectacle. She was 
with great difficulty kept from running off with all the 
bees upon her; but at length her master quieted her fears, 
and began to search for the queen. He succeeded ; and 
hoped when he put her into the hive that the bees would 
follow; but they only seemed to cluster more closely. 
Upon a second search he found another queen, (unless 
the same had escaped and returned,) whom seizing, he 
placed in the hive. The bees soon missed her, and 
crowded after her into it: so that in the space of two or 
three minutes not one was left upon the poor terrified 
girl. After this eseape, she became quite a heroine, and 
would undertake the most hazardous employments about 
the hives*. 
Many means have been had recourse to for the disper- 
sion of mobs and the allaying of popular tumults. In St. 
Petersburgh (so travellers say) a fire-engine playing upon 
them does not always cool their choler; but were a few 
hives of bees thus employed, their discomfiture would be 
4 Thorley, 150— 
