FOREIGN BEES. 
278 
tliin as water, yet it seemed as sweet, and of ns 
delicate a taste as the best honey of England." 
“ Whilst I was engaged in the cliace one day on 
foot with a Namaqua attendant, he picked up a 
small stone, looked at it earnestly, then over the 
plain, and threw it down again. I asked what it 
was ; he said there was the mark of a bee on it ; 
taking it up, I also saw on it a small pointed drop 
of wax,* which had fallen from a bee in its flight. 
The Namaqua noticed the direction the point of the 
drop indicated, and, walking on, he picked up an- 
other stone, also with a drop of wax on it, and so 
on at considerable intervals, till, getting behind a 
crag, he looked up, and bees were seen flying across 
the sky, and in and out of a cleft in the face of the 
rock. Here of course was the honey he was in pur- 
suit of. A dry bush is selected, fire is made, the 
cliff is ascended, and the nest is robbed in the sinoke.”+ 
African travellers give us an amusing account of 
one of the modes by which the natives in the interior 
are enabled to discover the spot where the bees have 
deposited their treasures. They are guided by a 
small bird ( Cuculus Indicus, See Plate XXV.) of a 
brownish-grey colour, well named the Honey-Guide. 
This little creature is very fond of honey and bee- 
brood ; but unable by its own exertions to secure 
the means of gratifying its taste, it directs the negroes, 
by a peculiar cry or whistle, to the tree where the 
bees have taken up their residence, advancing before 
* More probably excrement. 
Alexander's Expedition into the Interior of Africa. 
