But concerning this practice, Langstroth says: “It is probably not a whit more efficacious than the hideous noises of some savage tribes, who, imagining that the sun, in an eclipse, has been swallowed by an enormous dragon, resort to such means to compel his snakeship to disgorge their favorite luminary.”652

Dr. Toner, the author of that very interesting little work, “Maternal Instinct or Love,” informs me that when a boy he witnessed a mode of alluring a swarm of Bees to settle, performed by a German man and his wife, which struck him at the time as being remarkable, and which was as follows: Having first put some pig-manure upon the hive into which they wished the Bees to go, they ran to and fro under the swarm, singing a monotonous German hymn; and this they continued till the Bees were settled and hived.

Another strange mode of alluring Bees into a new hive is practiced near Gloucester, England, but only when all the usual ways of preparing hives fail; it is this: When a swarm is to be hived, instead of moistening the inside of the hive with honey, or sugar and water, the Bee-master throws into it, inverted, about a pint of beans, which he causes a sow to devour, and immediately then, it is said, will the Bees take to it.653

Pliny, as follows, incidentally mentions another curious mode of preparing the hives to best suit the Bees: “Touching Baulme, which the Greeks call Melittis or Melissophyllon: if Bee-hives be rubbed all over and besmeared with the juice thereof, the Bees will never go away; for there is not a flower whereof they be more desirous and faine than of it.”654

Borlase, in his Antiquities of Cornwall, p. 168, tells us of another strange practice in the hiving of Bees. He says: “The Cornish, to this day, invoke the spirit of Browny, when their Bees swarm; and they think that their crying Browny, Browny, will prevent them from returning into the former hive, and make them pitch and form a new colony.”655

The Rev. Thomas P. Hunt, of Wyoming, Pa., has devised an amusing plan, by which he says he can, at all times, prevent a swarm of Bees from leaving his premises. Before his stocks swarm, he collects a number of dead Bees, and, stringing them with a needle and thread, as worms are strung for catching eels, makes of them a ball about the size of an egg, leaving a few strands loose. By carrying—fastened to a pole—this “Bee-bob” about his Apiary, when the Bees are swarming, or by placing it in some central position, he invariably secures every swarm.656

The barbarous practice of killing Bees for their honey, not yet entirely abolished, did not exist in the time of Aristotle, Varro, Columella, and Pliny. The old cultivators took only what their Bees could spare, killing no stocks except such as were feeble or diseased. The following epitaph, taken from a German work, might well be placed over every pit of these brimstoned insects:

Here Rests,
CUT OFF FROM USEFUL LABOR,
A COLONY OF
INDUSTRIOUS BEES,
BASELY MURDERED
BY ITS
UNGRATEFUL AND IGNORANT
OWNER.

To the epitaph also may be appended Thomson’s verses:

It is considered very cruel in Africa, as Campbell observes, to kill Bees in order to obtain their honey, especially as from flowers being there at all seasons, and most in winter, they can live comfortably all the year round. A Hottentot, who was accustomed to kill the Bees, was often reasoned with by the humane to give up so cruel a practice, yet he persisted in it till a circumstance occurred which determined him to relinquish it. He had a water-mill for grinding his corn, which went very slowly, from the smallness of the stream which turned it; consequently the flour dropped very gently. For some time much less than usual came into the sack, the cause of which he could not discover. At length he found that a great part of his flour, as it was ground, was carried off by the Bees to their hives: on examining this, he found it contained only his flour, and no honey. This robbery made him resolve to destroy no more Bees when their honey was taken, considering their conduct in robbing him of his property as a just punishment to him for his cruelty. The gentleman who related this story, Mr. Campbell says, was a witness to the Bees robbing the mill.658

An old English proverb, relative to the swarming of Bees, is,—

In Tusser’s Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under the month of May, are these lines:

On which is the following observation in Tusser Redivivus, 1744, p. 62: “The tinkling after them with a warming-pan, frying-pan, kettle, is of good use to let the neighbors know you have a swarm in the air, which you claim wherever it lights; but I believe of very little purpose to the reclaiming of the Bees, who are thought to delight in no noise but their own.”

Ill fortune attends the killing of Bees,—a common saying. This, doubtless, arose from the thrift and usefulness of these insects.

That swarms of Bees, or fields, houses, stalls of cattle, or workshops, may not be affected by enchantment, Leontinus says: “Dig in the hoof of the right side of a sable ass under the threshold of the door, and pour on some liquid pitchy resin, salt, Heracleotic origanum, cardamonium, cumin, some fine bread, squills, a chaplet of white or of crimson wool, the chaste tree, vervain, sulphur, pitchy torches; and lay on some amaranthus every month, and lay on the mould; and, having scattered seeds of different kinds, let them remain.”660

To cure the stings of Bees, we have the following remedies: “Rue,” says Pliny, “is an hearbe as medicinable as the best … and is available against the stings of Bees, Hornets, and Wasps, and against the poison of the Cantharides and Salamanders.661

“Yea, and it is an excellent thing for them that be stung, to take the very Bees in drinke; for it is an approved cure.662

“Baulme is a most present remedy not only against their stings, but also of Wespes, Spiders, and Scorpions.663

“The Laurell, both leafe, barke, and berrie, is by nature hot; and applied as a liniment, be singular good for the pricke or sting of Wasps, Hornets, and Bees.664

“For the sting of Bees, Wasps, and Hornets, the Howlat (owlet) is counted a soveraigne thing, by a certaine antipathie in nature.665

“Moreover, as many as have about them the bill of a Woodspeck (Woodpecker) when they come to take honey out of the hive, shall not be stung by Bees.”666

It is said that if a man suffers himself to be stung by Bees, he will find that the poison will produce less and less effect upon his system, till, finally, like Mithridates of old, he will appear to almost thrive upon poison itself. When Langstroth first became interested in Bees, according to his statement, a sting was quite a formidable thing, the pain being often intense, and the wound swelling so as sometimes to obstruct his sight. But, at length, however, the pain was usually slight, and, if the sting was quickly extracted, no unpleasant consequences ensued, even if no remedies were used. Huish speaks of seeing the bald head of Bonner, a celebrated practical Apiarian, covered with stings, which seemed to produce upon him no unpleasant effects. The Rev. Mr. Kleine advises beginners to suffer themselves to be stung frequently, assuring them that, in two seasons, their systems will become accustomed to the poison. An old English Apiarian advises a person who has been stung, to catch as speedily as possible another Bee, and make it sting on the same spot.667

It is generally believed among our boys that if the part stung by a Bee be rubbed with the leaves of three different plants at the same time, the pain will be relieved.

Willsford, in his Nature’s Secrets, p. 134, says: “Bees, in fair weather, not wandering far from their hives, presage the approach of some stormy weather.… Wasps, Hornets, and Gnats, biting more eagerly than they used to do, is a sign of rainy weather.”668

The prognostication drawn from a flight of Bees, in which there is doubtless much truth, appears from the following lines to have been known to Virgil:

Bees were employed as the symbol of Epeses; they are common also on coins of Elyrus, Julis, and Præsus.670

One of the most remarkable facts in the history of Bees is that passage in the Bible671 about the swarm of these insects and honey in the carcass of the lion slain by Samson. Some look upon it as a paradox, others as altogether incredible; but it admits of easy explanation. The lion had been dead some little time before the Bees had taken up their abode in the carcass, for it is expressly stated that “after a time,” Samson returned and saw the Bees and honey in the carcass, so that “if,” as Oedman has well observed, “any one here represents to himself a corrupt and putrid carcass, the occurrence ceases to have any true similitude, for it is well known in these countries, at certain seasons of the year, the heat will in twenty-four hours so completely dry up the moisture of dead animals, and that without their undergoing decomposition, that their bodies long remain, like mummies, unaltered, and entirely free from offensive odor.” To the foregoing quotation we may add that very probably the larvæ of flies, ants, and other insects, which at the time when Bees swarm, are to be found in great numbers, would help to consume the carcass, and leave perhaps in a short time little else than a skeleton.672

An instance of Bees tenanting a dead body is found in the following passage from the writings of Herodotus: “Now the Amathusians, having cut off the head of Onesilus, because he had besieged them, took it to Amatheus, and suspended it over the gates; and when the head was suspended, and had become hollow, a swarm of Bees entered it, and filled it with honey-comb. When this happened, the Amathusians consulted the oracle respecting it, and an answer was given them, ‘that they should take down the head and bury it, and sacrifice annually to Onesilus, as to a hero; and if they did so, it would turn out better for them.’ The Amathusians did accordingly, and continued to do so until my time.”673

Another singular instance is mentioned by Napier in his Excursions on the shores of the Mediterranean: “Among this pretty collection of natural curiosities (in the cemetery of Algesiras), one in particular attracted our attention; this was the contents of a small uncovered coffin in which lay a child, the cavity of the chest exposed and tenanted by an industrious colony of Bees. The comb was rapidly progressing, and I suppose, according to the adage of the poet, they were adding sweets to the sweet, if not perfume to the violet.”674

Butler, in his Feminine Monarchie, narrates the following curious story: “Paulus Jovius affirmeth that in Muscovia, there are found in the woods & wildernesses great lakes of honey, which the Bees have forsaken, in the hollow truncks of marvelous huge trees. In so much that hony & waxe are the most certaine commodities of that countrie. Where, by that occasion, he setteth down the storie reported by Demetrius a Muscovite ambassador sent to Rome. A neighbor of mine (saith he) searching in the woods for hony slipt downe into a great hollow tree, and there sunk into a lake of hony vp to his brest: where when he had stucke faste two daies calling and crying out in vaine for helpe, because no bodie in the meane while came nigh that solitarie place; at length when he was out of all hope of life, hee was strangely delivered by the means of a great beare: which coming thither about the same businesse that he did, and smelling the hony stirred with his striving, clambered vp to the top of the tree, & thence began to let himselfe downe backward into it. The man bethinking himself, and knowing the worst was but death, which in that place he was sure of, beclipt the beare fast with both his hands aboit the loines, and withall made an outcry as lowd as he could. The beare being thus sodainely affrighted, what with the handling, & what with the noise, made vp againe withal speed possible: the man held, & the beare pulled, vntil with main force he had drawne Dun out of the mire: & then being let go, away he trots more afeard than hurt, leaving the smeered swaine in a joyful feare.”675

By the Chinese writers, the composition of the characters for the Bee, Ant, and Mosquito, respectively, denote the awl insect, the righteous insect, and the lettered insect; referring thereby to the sting of the first, the orderly marching and subordination of the second, and the letter-like markings on the wings of the last.676

In May, 1653, the remains of Childeric, King of the Franks, who died A.D. 481, and was buried at Tournay, were discovered; and among the medals, coins, and books, which were found in his tomb, were also found above three hundred figures of, as Chiflet says, Bees, all of gold. Some of these figures were toads, crescents, lilies, spear-heads, and such like, but Chiflet, after much labor and research, was fully convinced they were Bees; and, more than that, determines them to be the source whence the Fleur de lis in the Arms of France were afterward derived. Montfaucon, however, did not hesitate to say they were nothing more than ornaments of the horse-furniture.677

Napoleon I. and II. are said to have had their imperial robes embroidered with golden Bees, as claiming official descent from Carolus Magnus, who is said to have worn them on his coat of arms.678

On a Continental forty-five dollar bill, issued on the 14th of January, 1779, is represented an Apiary in which two Beehives are visible, and Bees are seen swarming about. The motto is “Sic floret Respublica—Thus flourishes the Republic.” It conveys the simple lesson that by industry and frugality the Republic would prosper.679

Bees in the heroic ages it appears were not confined in hives; for, whenever Homer describes them, it is either where they are streaming forth from a rock,680 or settling in bands and clusters on the spring flowers. Hesiod, however, soon after makes mention of a hive where he is uncourteously comparing women to drones:

It may be surprising to many to know that Bees were not originally natives of this country. But such is the case; the first planters never saw any. The English first introduced them into Boston, and in 1670, they were carried over the Alleghany Mountains by a hurricane.682 Since that time, it has been remarked they betray an invariable tendency for migrating southward.683

Bees for a long time were known to our Indians by the name of “English Flies;”684 and they consider them, says Irving, as the harbinger of the white man, as the buffalo is of the red man, and say that in proportion as the Bee advances, the Indian and the buffalo retire.685

Longfellow, in his Song of Hiawatha, in describing the advent of the European to the New World, makes his Indian warrior say of the Bee and the white clover:

Many Apiarians contend that newly-settled countries are most favorable to the Bee; and an old German adage runs thus:

Hector St. John, in his Letters, gives the following curious account of the method which he employed in discovering Bees in our woods in early times: Provided with a blanket, some provisions, wax, vermilion, honey, and a small pocket compass, he proceeded to such woods as were at a considerable distance from the settlements. Then examining if they abounded with large trees, he kindled a small fire on some flat stones, close by which putting some wax, and, on another stone near by, dropping distinct drops of honey, which he encircled with the vermilion. He then retired to carefully watch if any Bees appeared. The smell of the burnt wax, if there were any Bees in the neighborhood, would unavoidably attract them; and, finding the honey, would necessarily become tinged with the vermilion, in attempting to get at it. Next, fixing his compass, he found out the direction of the hives by the flight of the loaded Bees, which is invariably straight when they are returning home. Then timing with his watch the absence of the Bee till it would come back for a second load, and recognizing it by the vermilion, he could generally guess pretty closely to the distance traversed by it in the given time. Knowing then the direction and the probable distance, he seldom failed in going directly to the right tree. In this way he sometimes found as many as eleven swarms in one season.687

The shepherds of the Alps, as we learn from Sausure quoted in the Insect Miscellanies, as soon as the snows are melted on the sides of the mountains, transfer their flocks from the valleys below to the fresh pasture revived by the summer sun, in the natural parterres and patches of meadow-land formed at the foot of crumbling rocks, and sheltered by them from mountain storms; and so difficult sometimes is this transfer to be accomplished, that the sheep have to be slung by means of ropes from one cliff to another before they can be stationed on the little grass-plot above.688 A similar artificial migration (if we may use the term), continues the author of the Miscellanies, is effected in some countries by the proprietors of Beehives, who remove them from one district to another, that they may find abundance of flowers, and by this means prolong the summer. Sometimes this transfer is performed by persons forming an ambulatory establishment, like that of a gipsy horde, and encamping wherever flowers are found plentiful. Bee-caravans of this kind are reported to be not uncommon in some districts of Germany;689 and in parts of Greece,690 Italy, and France,691 the transportation of Bees was practiced from very early times. But a more singular practice in such transportation was to set the Beehives afloat in a canal or river, and we are informed that, in France, one Bee-barge was built of capacity enough for from sixty to one hundred hives, and by floating gently down the river, the Bees had an opportunity of gathering honey from the flowers along the banks.692

An instance of Bees being kept in this singular manner is found in the following quotation from the London Times, 1830: “As a small vessel was proceeding up the Channel from the coast of Cornwall, and running near the land, some of the sailors observed a swarm of Bees on an island; they steered for it, landed, and took the Bees on board; succeeded in hiving them immediately, and proceeded on their voyage; as they sailed along shore, the Bees constantly flew from the vessel to the land, to collect honey, and returned again to their moving hive; and this was continued all the way up the Channel.”693

In Lower Egypt, observes M. Maillet in his Description of Egypt, where the blossoming of flowers is about six weeks later than in the upper districts, the practice of transporting Beehives is much followed. The hives are collected from different villages along the banks, each being marked and numbered by individual proprietors, to prevent future mistakes. They are then arranged in pyramidal piles upon the boats prepared to receive them, which, floating gradually down the river, and stopping at certain stages of their passage, remain there a longer or a shorter time, according to the produce afforded by the surrounding country within two or three leagues. In this manner the Bee-boats sail for three months; the Bees, having culled the honey of the orange-flowers in the Said, and of the Arabian jasmine and other flowers in the more northern parts, are brought back to the places whence they had been carried. This procures for the Egyptians delicious honey and abundance of wax. The proprietors in return pay the boatmen a recompense proportioned to the number of hives which have been thus carried about from one extremity of Egypt to the other.694 The celebrated traveler Niebuhr saw upon the Nile, between Cairo and Damietta, a convoy of 4000 hives in their transit from Upper Egypt to the coast of the Delta.695

In the Bienenzeitung for 1854, p. 83, appears the following statements: “Mr. Kaden, of Mayence, thinks that the range of the Bee’s flight does not usually extend more than three miles in all directions. Several years ago, a vessel, laden with sugar, anchored off Mayence, and was soon visited by the Bees of the neighborhood, which continued to pass to and from the vessel from dawn to dark. One morning, when the Bees were in full flight, the vessel sailed up the river. For a short time, the Bees continued to fly as numerously as before; but gradually the number diminished, and, in course of half an hour, all had ceased to follow the vessel, which had, meanwhile, sailed more than four miles.”696

Aristomachus of Soli, says Pliny, made Bees his exclusive study for a period of fifty-eight years; and Philiocus, the Thracian, surnamed Agrius—“Wildman”—passed his life in desert spots tending swarms of Bees.697

Schomburgk says he saw, in his journey to the sources of the Takutu, an Indian, who was the conjuror or piaiman of his tribe, merely approach a nest of the wild Wampang-bees (Wampisiana camniba), and knocking with his fingers against it, drive out all the Bees without a single one injuring him. The piaiman, Schomburgk remarks, drew his fingers under the pits of his arms before he knocked against the hive.698

Brue, in his first voyage to Siratic, in Africa, met with what he called a “phenomenon” in a person entitling himself the “King of the Bees.” His majesty accordingly came to the boat of the traveler entirely covered with these insects, and followed by thousands, over which he appeared to exercise the most absolute authority. These Bees were never known to injure either himself or those whom he took under his protection.699

Mr. Wildman, the most celebrated Bee-tamer, frequently asserted that armed with his friendly Bees he was defensible against the fiercest mastiffs; and, it is said, he actually did, at Salisbury, encounter three yard-dogs one after the other. The conditions of the engagement were, that he should have notice of the dog being set at him. Accordingly the first mastiff was set loose; and as he approached the man, two Bees were detached, which immediately stung him, the one on the nose, the other on the flank; upon receiving the wounds, the dog retired very much daunted. After this, the second dog entered the lists, and was foiled with the same expedition as the first. The third dog was at last brought against the champion, but the animal observing the ill success of his brethren, would not attempt to sustain a combat; so, in a cowardly manner, he retired with his tail between his legs.

Many other remarkable anecdotes are told of this gentleman, illustrating his wonderful control over Bees. He could also, indeed, tame wasps and hornets, with almost the same ease as he could Bees, and an instance is mentioned of his hiving a nest of hornets which hung at the top of the inside of a high barn. He, however, was stung twice in this undertaking.

Mr. Wildman frequently exhibited himself with his head and face almost covered with Bees, and with such a swarm of them hanging down from his chin as to resemble a venerable beard. In this extraordinary dress he was once brought through the City of London sitting in a chair. Before Earl Spencer, Mr. Wildman also made many wonderful performances.700

Says Dr. Evans:

“Long experience has taught me,” says Mr. Wildman himself, “that as soon as I turn up a hive, and give some taps on the sides and bottom, the queen immediately appears. Being accustomed to see her, I readily perceive her at the first glance; and long practice has enabled me to seize her instantly, with a tenderness that does not in the least endanger her person. Being possessed of her, I can, without exciting any resentment, slip her into my other hand, and returning the hive to its place, hold her, till the Bees, missing her, are all on the wing and in the utmost confusion.” It was then, by placing the queen in view, he could make them light wherever he pleased, from their great attachment to her, and sometimes using a word of command to mystify the spectators, he would cause them to settle on his head, and to hang to his chin like a beard, from which he would order them to his hand, or to an adjacent window. But, however easy such feats may appear in theory, Mr. Wildman cautions (probably with a view to deter rivals) those who are inexperienced not to put themselves in danger of attempting to imitate him. A liberated Roman slave, C. F. Cnesinus, being accused before the tribunals of witchcraft, because his crops were more abundant than those of his neighbors, produced as his witnesses some superior implements of husbandry, and well fed oxen, and pointing to them said: “These, Romans! are my instruments of witchcraft; but I cannot show you my toil, my perseverance, and my anxious cares.” “So,” says Wildman, “may I say, These, Britons! are my instruments of witchcraft; but I cannot show you my hours of attention to this subject, my anxiety and care for these useful insects; nor can I communicate to you my experience acquired during a course of years.”702

Butler mentions two instances where the stings of Bees have been fatal to “cattaile”:

“A horse,” he informs us, “in the heate of the day looking over a hedge, on the other side whereof was a staule of Bees, while hee stood nodding with his head, as his manner is, because of the flies, the Bees fell vpon him and killed him. Likewise I heard of a teeme that stretching against a hedge overthrew a staule on the other side, and so two of the horses were stung to death.”703

Mungo Park and his party were twice seriously attacked by large swarms of Bees. The first attack is mentioned in the account of his first journey; the second in the account of his second. The latter singular accident befell them in 1805, and is thus narrated in his journal: The coffle had halted at a creek, and the asses had just been unloaded, when some of his guide Isaaca’s people, being in search of honey, unfortunately disturbed a large swarm of Bees near their resting-place. The Bees came out in immense numbers, and attacked men and beasts at the same time. Luckily, most of the asses were loose, and galloped up the valley; but the horses and people were very much stung, and obliged to scamper off in all directions. The fire which had been kindled for cooking, being deserted, spread, and set fire to the bamboos, and the baggage had like to have been burned. In fact, for half an hour the Bees seemed to have completely put an end to the journey. In the evening when they became less troublesome, and the cattle could be collected, it was found that many of them were very much stung, and swollen about the head. Three asses were missing; one died in the course of the evening, and one next morning, and they were forced to leave one behind the next day. Altogether six were lost, besides which, the guide lost his horse, and many of the people were much stung about the face and hands.704

But in the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times, we find the following: “Anthenor, writing of the Isle of Crete (with whom also ioyneth Ælianus) saith, that a great multitude of Bees chased al the dwellers out of a City, and vsed their Houses instead of Hives.”705

Montaigne mentions the following singular assistance rendered by Bees to the inhabitants of Tamly: The Portuguese having besieged the City of Tamly, in the territory of Xiatine, the inhabitants of the place brought a great many hives, of which there are great plenty in that place, upon the wall; and with fire drove the Bees so furiously upon the enemy that they gave over the enterprise, not being able to stand their attacks and endure their stings: and so the citizens, by this new sort of relief, gained liberty and the victory with so wonderful a fortune, that at the return of their defenders from the battle they found they had not lost so much as one.706

Lesser tells us that in 1525, during the confusion occasioned by a time of war, a mob assembling in Hohnstein (in Thuringia) attempted to plunder the house of the minister of Elende; who having spoken to them with no effect, as a last resort ordered his domestics to bring his Beehives, and throw them in the midst of the furious mob. The desired effect was instantaneous, for the mob dispersed immediately.707

Bees have also been employed as an article of food. Knox tells us that the natives of Ceylon, when they meet with a swarm of Bees hanging on a tree, hold burning torches under them to make them drop; and so catch and carry them home, where they boil and eat them, in their estimation, as excellent food.708

Peter Martyr, speaking of the Caribbean Islands, says: “The Inhabitantes willingly eate the young Bees, rawe, roasted, and sometimes sodden.”709

Bancroft tells us that when the negroes of Guiana are stung by Bees, they in revenge eat as many as they can catch.710

The following account of the Bee-eater of Selborne, England, is by the Reverend, and very accurate naturalist, Gilbert White: “We had in this village,” says he, “more than twenty years ago (about 1765), an idiot boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong propensity to Bees: they were his food, his amusement, his sole object; and as people of this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he dozed away his time, within his father’s house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing from the chimney corner; but in the summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the fields and on sunny banks. Honey-bees, Humble-bees, and Wasps were his prey, wherever he found them: he had no apprehensions from their stings, but would seize nudis manibus, and at once disarm them of their weapons, and search their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he would fill his bosom between his shirt and his skin with a number of these captives; and sometimes would confine them in bottles. He was a very Merops apiaster, or Bee-bird, and very injurious to men that kept Bees; for he would slide into their Bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the Bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making, he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he called Bee-wine. As he ran about he used to make a humming noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of Bees. This lad was lean and sallow, and of a cadaverous complexion; and, except in his favorite pursuit, in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of understanding.”711

There is a peculiar substance formed by a species of Bee in the Orinoco country, which, says Captain Stedman, the roosting tribes burn incessantly in their habitations, and which effectually protects them from all winged insects. They call it Comejou; Gumilla says it is neither earth nor wax.712

Concerning the medicinal virtues of Bees, Dr. James says: “Their salts are very volatile, and highly exalted; for this reason, when dry’d, powder’d, and taken internally, they are diuretic and diaphoretic. If this powder is mixed in unguents, with which the head is anointed, it is said to cure the Alopecia, and to contribute to the growth of hair upon bald places.”713

Another, an old writer, says: “If Bees, when dead, are dried to powder, and given to either man or beast, this medicine will often give immediate ease in the most excruciating pain, and remove a stoppage in the body when all other means have failed.” A tea made by pouring boiling water upon Bees has recently been prescribed, by high medical authority, for violent strangury; while the poison of the Bee, under the name of apis, is a great homœopathic remedy.714

Concerning wax, Dr. James says: “All wax is heating, mollifying, and moderately incarning. It is mixed in sorbile liquors as a remedy for dysentery; and ten bits, of the size of a grain of millet, swallowed, prevent the curdling of milk in the breast of nurses.”715

[If we might credit the history of former times, says Jamieson, in his Scottish Dictionary, sub. Walx, iv. 642–3, there must have been a considerable demand for this article (wax) for the purpose of witchcraft. It was generally found necessary, it would seem, as the medium of inflicting pain on the bodies of men.

“To some others at these times he teacheth, how to make pictures of waxe or clay, that by the wasting thereof, the persons that they beare the name of, may be continually melted or dried away by continuall sickenesse.” K. James’s Dæmonologie, B. II. c. 5.

In order to cause acute pain in the patient, pins, we are told, were stuck in that part of the body of the image, in which they wished the person to suffer.

The same plan was adopted for inspiring another with the ardor of love.