AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
273 
ways think with pleasure of the many agreeable hours I have 
passed in company with my Bees. Those only can judge 
of this, who, like myself, have witnessed their assiduity, 
their internal labours, their affection for their Queen, and 
all the various modes they take in promoting the prospe- 
rity of the community. I always listen to the pleasing 
hum of Bees with delight, and know of few sounds more 
soothing and agreeable. 
“ Then, cheerful Bee, come, freely come, 
And travel round my woodbine bower ! 
Delight me with thy wandering hum, 
And rouse me from my musing hour; 
Oh ! try no more those tedious fields, 
Come taste the sweets my garden yields : 
The treasures of each blooming mine, 
The bud — the blossom — all are thine.” 
In some papers published a few years ago, I endea- 
voured to point out the great cruelty of procuring honey 
by the suffocation of Bees, and the advantage which the 
Bee-owner would derive from contenting himself with a 
part only of their stores. This may be done by placing a 
small hive glass, or even a flowerpot, on the top of each 
hive in April or May. These should be of a size to hold 
about eight or ten pounds’ weight of honey; and in a 
tolerably good season they will generally be filled, leaving 
a sufficient stock of honey for the Bees to subsist upon 
till the following spring. I am happy to find that this 
method is more generally practised than it formerly was. 
By adopting it, the lives of thousands of these industrious 
insects would be saved; the profits of the Bee-owner would 
be much more considerable, and his stock of Bees annu- 
ally increased. 
The summer of the year 1S18, was unusually dry and 
hot, and in July flowers of almost every description had 
entirely disappeared. I observed that Bees, in conse- 
quence of this, seldom left their hives in search of honey, 
though the weather, one would have thought, would have 
tempted them out. They seemed, indeed, to be perfect- 
ly aware that their labours would be useless. I recollect 
meeting with an account of a hive of Bees being trans- 
ported from a distant place, to a spot by the side of a 
mountain in Italy, where they could procure honey all the 
year round. Finding this to be the case, they soon gave 
up stocking their hive, and only went out to collect honey 
as they wanted it. The same observation has been made 
on Bees taken out to the West Indies, who the first year 
stored their hive as usual, and never afterwards, merely 
supplying themselves with food from day to day. 
[Ibid. 
THE MOLE. 
“ Tread softly, that the blind Mole may not 
Hear a foot fall ; we now are near his cell.''' Shakspeare. 
The Mole-hills which we see in fields and meadows 
are thrown up by the Mole probably during its search for 
food. Little was known of the natural history of this ani- 
mal, till a French naturalist, M. St. Hilaire, published 
lately some interesting particulars respecting it. The Mole 
forms several under-ground passages; and the waj' she 
proceeds in doing this is as follows: — she first makes a 
run in various directions, by undermining the ground, 
and unites this and several others at one point, making, 
however, some of them larger than the others. M. St. 
Hilaire says, that she finishes by arranging them with the 
most perfect symmetry, plastering the sides with great 
care; and when completed, it may be called her encamp- 
ment. In the centre of these works she establishes her- 
self, and appropriates a separate place to the reception of 
her young, which is in some respects differently construct- 
ed from her own. In order to render the respective ha- 
bitations which she and her young occupy not liable to be 
injured by the rain, she makes them almost even with the 
ground, and higher up than the runs, which serve as 
drains, or channels, to carry off the water. She makes 
choice of the place of her abode with the greatest care, 
sometimes constructing it at the foot of a wall, or near a 
hedge or a tree, where it has the less chance of being bro- 
ken in. This abode is sometimes protected by having a 
quantity of earth thrown over it, especially in light soils, 
where I have seen a mound almost large enough to fill a 
wheelbarrow. Sometimes, however, no earth is thrown 
up over the habitation. This precaution of the Mole is 
very necessary, to prevent the places she has chosen fox- 
retreats for herself and her young from being ti-ampled in. 
When a Mole has occasion to make her run through a 
gateway, I have observed that she generally carries it as 
near as possible to the gate-post, where it is less likely to 
be injured. Some runs ai-e so near the surface, that I 
have seen the ground crack dui’ing the animal’s px-ogress 
in working them. The bed for the young is composed 
of the blades of wheat, with which the Mole forms a sort 
of mattress. Four hundred and two of them were counted in 
one nest, and all so fresh in their appearance, that they had 
been probably collected by this animal in the course of 
two or thx-ee days. This shows not only her extraor- 
dinary industry, but the great depredation she must 
commit. 
The Mole is never known to work for food near the 
place which she has fixed upon for her abode. She labours 
Yyy 
