PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



171 



consists of old and young, this is no argument for burning 

 them. It is a saying of bee-keepers in Holland, that the first 

 swallow and the first bee foretel each other. 1 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 wonder- 

 ful. Reaumur mentions a countryman who preserved bees 

 in the same hive for thirty years. 2 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. 3 These circumstances 

 have led authors to ascribe to bees a greater age than they can 

 claim. Thus Mouffet, because he knew a bees' nest which 

 had remained thirty years in the same quarters, concludes that 

 they are very long-lived, and very sapiently doubts whether 

 they even die of old age at all ! 4 Which is just as wise as if 

 a man should contend, because London had existed from be- 

 fore the time of Julius Csesar, that therefore 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 



" Nine times emerging from the crystal flood, 

 She mews to every watery god," 



yet she will bear submersion nine hours ; and, if exposed to 

 sufficient heat, be reanimated. In this case their proboscis is 

 generally unfolded, and stretched to its full length. At the 

 extremity of this motion is first perceived, and then at the 

 ends of the legs. After these symptoms appear they soon 

 recover, fold up the tongue, and plume themselves for flight. 5 

 Experimentalists may therefore, without danger, submerge 

 a hive of bees, when they want to examine them particularly, 

 for they will all revive upon being set to the fire. Reaumur 



1 Swamra. Bib. Nat. ed. HilK i. 160. 



2 XJbi supr. 665. 3 178. 



4 Theatr. Ins. 21. * Reaum. v. 540. 



