. Anecdotes of remarkable insects : selected from natural history, and interspersed with poetry. happened, were all destroyed,except one; who is very much wounded,and now lies dangerously ill. He has aviolent delirious fever; but says at in-tervals, that just before this happened, oneof these monsters, actually drew towards thecity; and that he saw him suddenly raiseup one of those vast columns which supporthim, and drive away the rock before himwith the end of it. How true this accountmay be. Heaven only knows; but surely itis not unlike the character of those pestsof the whole animal world,
. Anecdotes of remarkable insects : selected from natural history, and interspersed with poetry. happened, were all destroyed,except one; who is very much wounded,and now lies dangerously ill. He has aviolent delirious fever; but says at in-tervals, that just before this happened, oneof these monsters, actually drew towards thecity; and that he saw him suddenly raiseup one of those vast columns which supporthim, and drive away the rock before himwith the end of it. How true this accountmay be. Heaven only knows; but surely itis not unlike the character of those pestsof the whole animal world, who were cer-tainly created by the evil principle; and whoseem to be the only creatures on the face ofthe earth, who delight in doing mischief toothers, without any view of doing good tothemselves. Whatever was the cause of our sufferings,never was there a people more distressed thanwe are. Come therefore as soon as you pos-sibly can, to comfort your afflicted friend,who could scarcely write thus much for tears,and who yet has not told you the half of ourmisfortunes. BEES. 61 BEES.—^P/. Their Sagacity and Habits. THESE Insects are very numerous,and differ considerably in their habits. Someare found in extensive communities, con-structing, with the utmost art, cells for theiryoung, and repositories for their food; whileothers both dwell and work in solitude. Thewhole tribe live on the nectar of flowers andon ripe fruit. We shall, however, more G 62 BEES. particularly confine ourselves to the descrip-tion of the Hive Bee, as related by theRev. Mr. Bingley. In the formation of their combs, thepresent insect seems to resolve a problemwhich would not be a little puzzling to somegeometricians, namely, A quantity of waxbeing given to make of it equal and similarcells of a determined capacity, but of thelargest size in proportion to the quantity ofmatter employed, and disposed in such amanner as to occupy in the hive the leastpossible space. Every part of this problemis completely
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