BEES, AND NOT BEES. 
207 
flowers. The hard, prickly corolla soon repulsed them, and sent them 
back to the faded asters. I felt very sad, and said to them :—“ Late, 
very late, my friends, you come, and to the tomb of the poor! Why 
am I not able to recompense yon with a banquet of friendship, which 
should sustain and warm you during the first cold breezes, already 
blowing on these icy heights, so exposed to the northern wind ! ” 
As if they had understood me, their movements afforded an exact 
reply. Some I saw, with their little limbs skilfully bent forward, rub¬ 
bing their backs in the sun; they longed to absorb into every vein its 
genial radiance. They made the most of that brief hour when the sun 
revolves too quickly; one scarcely feels it before it has gone! Their 
significant gesture plainly said:—“ Oh, what a cold morning we have 
had! Let us make haste ! In less than an hour commences the 
equally inclement evening, the frozen night,—nay, who knows ? the 
winter ! and then our death is at hand.” 
They were still full of life, however; marvellously trim and bright,— 
I may even say radiant,—under their illuminated wings, all shot with 
gold. I never saw more beautiful insects; insects more clearly inspired 
by a higher life. One thing embarrassed me; namely, that they were 
too handsome, and too shining, inasmuch as they did not wear their 
industrial attire, their velvety coat, their pincers, and their brushes. 
And, finally, I discovered another circumstance: that they had not the 
four wings of the bee, but only two. 
I perceived my mistake. It was these insects which had deceived 
Virgil. Like myself, he thought them bees, and so he erroneously 
called them. Reaumur confesses that for a moment even he was de¬ 
ceived by them. 
But the fact related by Virgil is not inaccurate. We can understand 
how keenly it would impress the minds of the ancients, and how they 
would see in it a type of resurrection. They seem the daughters of 
death. Of the three ages of their existence, they spend the first in 
morbid and deadly waters, fatal to all other creatures, which permit 
the escape of the residuum of life in dissolution; with ingenious tender¬ 
ness, Nature there preserves them, maintains them alive, and enables 
them to breathe in the very midst of death. 
