284 
FOREIGN BEES. 
thought us, the honey and the bees were inaccessible, 
and indeed invisible, save only when the natives cut 
it out and brought it to us in little sheets of bark, 
thus displaying a degree of ingenuity and skill in 
supplying their wants, which we, with all our science, 
could not hope to attain. They would catch one of 
the bees and attach to it, with some rosin or gum, 
the light down of the swan or owl ; thus laden, the 
bee would make for the branch of some lofty tree, 
and so betray its home of sweets to its keen-eyed 
pursuers, whose bee-chase presented indeed a laugh- 
able scene.”* 
In the Western Hemisphere we find the honey- 
bee in as great variety and abundance as in the 
Eastern World. In the United States of America, 
and stretching as far to the westward, as 95 deg. W. 
long, the domestic bee of Europe has been naturalized, 
and appears to prosper amazingly, in the new coun- 
tries continually opening to civilization in that region. 
Little more than thirty years ago, according to War- 
den, it was not found to the westward of the Missis- 
sippi ; but is now spreading over the extensive 
prairies on the western banks of the Missouri. In 
these regions, bee-hunting, or bee-liming, as it is there 
called, is a very general occupation ; and various 
modes are described by travellers of obtaining the 
fruit of the insects’ labour. Knowing that in the 
breeding season, the bees resort much to springs of 
water in the woods, the hunter places on a flat stone 
* Vol. i. p. 171. 
