PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. OVI 
other?. This perhaps may be correct there; but with 
us the appearance of bees considerably precedes that 
of the swallow ; for when the early crocuses open, if the 
weather be warm, they may always be found busy in 
the blossom. 
The time that bees will inhabit the same stations is 
wonderful. Reaumur mentions a countryman who pre- 
served bees in the same hive for thirty years’. ‘Thorley 
tells us that a swarm took possession of a spot under the 
leads of the study of Ludovicus Vives in Oxford, where 
they continued a hundred and ten years, from 1520 
to 1630°. These circumstances have led authors to 
ascribe to bees a greater age than they can claim. Thus 
Moufiet, because he knew a bees-nest which had re- 
mained thirty years in the same quarters, concludes that 
they are very long-lived, and very sapiently doubts whe- 
ther they even die of old age at all¢!!! Which is just 
as wise as if a man should contend, because London had 
existed from before the time of Julius Cesar, that there- 
fore its inhabitants must be immortal. 
Bees are subject to many accidents, particularly, as I 
have said above, they often fall or are precipitated by the 
wind into water; and though like the cat a bee has not 
nine lives, nor ie 
“ Nine times emerging from the crystal flood, 
She mews to every watery god,” 
yet she will bear submersion nine hours; and, if ex- 
posed to sufficient heat, be reanimated. In this case their 
proboscis is generally unfolded, and stretched to its full, 
4 Swamm, Bid. Nat. Ed. Hill, i. 160. b ubi supr. 665. 
© 173— 4 Theatr, Ins. 21. 
ie 
