CHAPTER IX.

_Many curious things about bees._

We have already told so much about bees, that our young readers are perhaps weary of the subject; but it must be remembered that we are relating the story of Inquisitive Jack, and it is proper that we should give a full account of whatever interested him.

It happened in his case, as it has in many others, that the more he knew about this subject, the more interesting it became to him. When he first noticed the bees, crawling about the flowers, and fingering the little delicate leaves in the centre of the blossoms, he did not think much about them; but now that he had become acquainted with the wonders of the bee-hive, he was very curious to gain all the knowledge he could upon the subject. By his own inquiries, therefore, and the help of aunt Betsey, he learned the following additional particulars respecting these curious insects.

After the swarming season is over, a general massacre of the drones in the hive takes place. This usually occurs toward the latter part of July. The unfortunate victims evidently perceive their danger; for they are now seen darting in and out of the hive, and passing from one place to another, as if afraid of being seized. Like some poor man, who owes a debt he cannot pay, and is afraid of being caught by the sheriff, they wander from place to place, as if in a constant state of alarm.

When the working bees meet these drones, they fall upon them and plunge their stings into their bodies. The wounded drones immediately expand their wings and expire. Some of these poor creatures struggle hard for life, but they are all slain at last.

This destruction of the drones may remind us of the old Spartans of Greece, who sacrificed everything to the thrift and prosperity of the state. The bee-hive may be considered a little monarchy, in which the great object is to increase the number and wealth of the community.

The drones having provided for the due increase of the bees, can no farther contribute to the prosperity of the little nation. On the contrary, they will not work even so much as to obtain their own food; they still devour a portion of honey, and thus diminish the general stock which is laid up as a provision against the coming winter. Making everything give way, therefore, to the interest of the community at large, the drones are slain without mercy.

This practice of the bees has furnished a happy illustration to the poet, who thus urges upon mankind a life of industry:

“Nor think a life of toil severe, No life has blessings so sincere: Its meals so luscious, sleep so sweet, Such vigorous limbs, such health complete; No mind so active, brisk and gay As his who toils the livelong day. A life of sloth drags hardly on; Suns set too late and rise too soon. Youth, manhood, age, all linger slow To him who nothing has to do. The drone, a nuisance to the hive, Stays, but can scarce be said to live; And well the bees, those judges wise, Plague, chase and sting him till he dies.”

The swarming of bees may be compared to the emigration of a great number of people from one country, and forming colonies in another. In the winter, at least three-fourths of the bees in the hive usually perish. But the amazing fruitfulness of the queen more than supplies this waste, and by midsummer, the hive is usually too full for them all to be comfortable.

It is in somewhat the same situation that Ireland is in at the present time――and as many of the natives of that island are coming in swarms to this country, so the bees pass off in crowds, and take up their abode elsewhere. Sometimes two or even three swarms will issue from one hive in a year.

The swarm is very careful to select a good fair day for their emigration. They usually take one of the young queens with them, and, if by any chance the swarm passes off without a queen, they always return to the hive. While swarming, bees are generally peaceable, and may be hived without difficulty.

A writer upon bees tells the following interesting story: “A little girl of my acquaintance was greatly afraid of bees, but was completely cured of her fears by the following incident. A swarm having come off, I observed the queen alight by herself at some distance from the hive; I immediately called my little friend that I might shew her the queen. She wished to see her more nearly; so, after having caused her to put on her gloves, I gave the queen into her hand.

“We were in an instant surrounded by the whole swarm. In this emergency, I encouraged the girl to be steady, bidding her remain silent and fear nothing. I then made her stretch out her right hand which held the queen, and covered her neck and shoulders with a very thin handkerchief. The swarm soon fixed upon her hand, and hung from it, as from the branch of a tree. The little girl was delighted above measure at this novel sight, and so entirely freed from all her fears that she bade me uncover her face. At length, I brought a hive, and shaking the swarm from the child’s hand, it was lodged in safety, without inflicting a single wound.”

Bees are subject to several diseases; among which vertigo is the most remarkable. This causes great lassitude or weakness of the hind legs, an irregular mode of flying, and often produces death. The enemies of bees are numerous, among which we may mention birds, poultry, mice, wax-moths, slugs, hornets, wasps, ants and spiders. Of all these, the most destructive are wasps; these often enter the hive, and as one wasp is a match for three bees, they devour great quantities of honey.

Another great enemy to bees is the king-bird, or tyrant fly-catcher. A gentleman once shot a king-bird, and in his crop he found no less than one hundred and seventy-one bees; on being taken out, and laid on a blanket in the sun, fifty-four of these returned to life.

Great attention has been paid to the rearing of bees, and it has been found advantageous to remove them from one place to another, so that they may obtain fresh pasturage. A gentleman in England had once a swarm which weighed but five pounds when he removed it to Dartmoor Heath; at the end of two months, it was increased in weight no less than twenty-four pounds!

Bees are supposed to have some means of communicating with each other, not very unlike language. Their two horns which come out from the head below the eyes, called antennæ, are supposed to answer the purpose of ears, and to convey sounds as well as to accomplish some other objects.

Bees, as well as ants, are often seen to meet and cross their antennæ, and they then proceed to act as if important information was thus imparted. When the queen of a hive is lost, the intelligence is spread with such rapidity that twenty thousand bees are informed of the fact in the space of a few hours,――a circumstance to be explained only by the supposition of something like language, in use among them.

The lives of most insects are extremely brief. Some live but a few hours; others for a few days, or weeks, or months. By far the larger portion begin and end their existence in the course of the warm season. The drones or male bees are cut off by violence, as we have seen, after having lived three or four months. The average life of the working bee is about six months, though they sometimes live to the age of ten or twelve months.

The queen is a more favored being. She is not only the mother of thousands, but she survives, while many generations pass away. Her life is often extended to the period of four or five years.

What is Habit?

When we have done a thing several times, it becomes easier for us to do it than before. When a boy begins to use profane words, he does it with a feeling of awkwardness. The first time he swears, he usually feels quite badly.

But he swears the second time more easily, and more easily still the third time. At last he does it without any bad feeling, and, indeed, takes a pleasure in his profanity. He has now got a _habit_ of swearing, and it is easier for him to use bad language than any other.

It is just the same with lying. A child feels very badly when he tells the first lie. He feels badly, too, when he tells the second; but when he has told a dozen or two, he usually tells a lie as easily as he tells the truth; and the reason is that he has got a _habit_ of lying.

Habit is, then, a disposition, an inclination to do a thing, arising from practice. It is said that practice makes perfect; by which it is meant that a person does a thing easily which he has done often.

Now some very important inferences are to be drawn from this. If a person does evil repeatedly, he gets a habit of it, and it becomes natural, easy for him to do evil; and the longer a person goes on in this habit, the more easy it is for him to do evil, and the more difficult to do well. What a fearful thing it is, therefore, to get any bad habit!

It is the same with good habits as bad ones――they tend to control us and guide our conduct. If a person does good repeatedly, it becomes a habit with him to do good; it is easy for him to do good, and difficult to do wrong. What an important thing it is to have good habits!

Now, my dear reader, remember that every day you are forming habits, good or bad; you are every day making it easier to do evil or to do well. Habits are like railroad tracks, upon which we move quickly, easily, and rapidly. Let us all take care that our habits lead in a right direction, and end in peace and not in sorrow.

* * * * *

Fitchburg, July 29, 1843. MR. ROBERT MERRY:

Dear Sir,――The following lines were written for a little girl who is a subscriber to the Museum. It would be gratifying to her to have them inserted. Yours, F. S. W.

THE CHICKADEE.

_Elizabeth._――Pretty bird, pray come to me, I’ve a little home for thee. _Bird._――No I can’t, I am free, Chickadee dee dee, I will sing upon this tree, Every day for you and me; O how happy I shall be! Chickadee dee dee. When the earth from snow is free And the tender plant you see, Then you’ll hear right merrily, Chickadee dee dee. _E._――When the summer months shall flee And the little busy bee Stays at home, where will be Chickadee dee dee? _B._――Far away beyond the sea, Singing in the orange tree, You will hear so cheerily, Chickadee dee dee. Here I am, don’t you see, High upon this cherry tree; So good-bye, dear Lizze, Don’t forget the chickadee. (_Flies away._)――Chickadee, chickadee, I am happy, I am free; While cheerily and merrily, Sings the little chickadee!

MERRY’S MUSEUM.

Vol. VI. NOVEMBER, 1843. No. 5.

[Illustration]

A long Chapter upon November.

We have reached November, the eleventh month in the year. Our Saxon ancestors called October _wyn-monat_, or wine month, and this _wynt-monat_, or wind month. It is indeed a blustering season; and it seems as if winter and summer were in a furious contest for mastery. The cold winds come down from the north, loaded with sleet and hail, and for a time seem to exercise dominion over the land.

The tempest roars in the forest; nuts are shaken down from the trees; the leaves are scattered in the valley; the ocean is lashed into foam; all nature appears to be shadowed with gloom; and every living thing seems to shrink from the scene. The birds have already departed, or if any linger, they hurry away on a swift and busy wing. The woodchuck, the dormouse, and the chip-squirrel creep into their holes, and prepare for their long winter repose.

Occasionally, the black clouds are driven back, and gleams of sunshine creep over the land. A southerly wind, too, occasionally breathes upon us, and it seems as if the genial warmth of autumn would triumph in the great contest of nature. But, as the days advance, the strength of winter increases, and we slide into December, when its dominion becomes complete. Like an unrelenting despot, it then binds the river and the lake in icy chains; it sweeps away the last vestige of summer, and marks the boundaries of its realm with a dazzling mantle of snow.

Such is November in New England. In Old England, it is still more gloomy. The thick fogs, mingling with the smoke, hang like a dark curtain over the country; the day is dwindled to the length of seven or eight hours, and the sun rises but a few degrees in the horizon. It is quite common for it to be so dark that lamps and candles are burnt in the houses during the whole day, and frequently the stage-coaches have been obliged at the same time to travel with their lamps lighted.

This gloom of nature is, however, not without its advantages. The necessity of providing for winter is taught by it to every one. The farmer lays in his stock of fuel; the house is made tight; the cattle are gathered to the barn-yard, and thus the necessities of life enforce upon the people industry, prudence, and frugality; and these virtues become established in society. Thus it is that in cold countries the people, benefitted by the rigors of their climate, become more hardy, energetic, and virtuous. Thus it is, if you travel over the world, you will find in northern countries the finest houses, the best roads, the handsomest edifices, and, indeed, the greatest comforts and luxuries of life. On the contrary, if you travel in southern countries, where winter brings no snow, and where even November is a month of flowers, you will find most of the people idle, careless, and vicious. Their houses are generally frail and poor; their clothing slight, filthy, and ragged. Everything seems marked with poverty and neglect.

So it is that Providence balances the account with the different portions of the globe. Those who endure a harsh climate are compensated by the comforts and refinements which spring up in the soil of necessity. Those who enjoy a bland and smiling climate pay for it in various evils, social, mental, and moral.

There is one advantage which the cold season brings, and which we of New England enjoy in a peculiar manner. As winter approaches, we are driven into the house, and are taught to find our pleasures there. The family circle is thus drawn closer together, and hence acquires a deeper and more lasting interest.

If children could always wander abroad, chasing butterflies, plucking flowers, and feasting upon fruits, they would feel little of that dependence upon parents, which is the source of many virtues. Brothers and sisters would experience little of that interchange of kindly offices and friendly feelings, which weave their hearts together with an enduring web of affection. Home would lose more than half its charms, nearly all its thousand streams of virtue and of bliss.

As I am quite aware that some of my black-eyed, blue-eyed, and gray-eyed readers are pretty sharp critics, and understand geography, I must qualify these remarks. In speaking of cold countries here, I have alluded particularly to those which belong to what is called the Temperate Zone; those which lie between the burning tropics and the frigid regions toward the poles. I know that the latter are occupied by short and squalid races of Laplanders, Esquimaux, and Samoides. The extreme winter in these regions seems to stint and degrade the human species.

Yet these polar people believe they are the happiest in the world. Sheltered in their icy dwellings, feasting upon blubber oil, and skimming over the vast snowy plains upon sledges drawn by dogs or reindeer, they deem themselves blessed above the rest of mankind. They probably enjoy their existence quite as much as do the languid and voluptuous inhabitants of the tropics.

* * * * *

A drunken fellow, being reproved by some of his friends for having sold his feather bed, replied, “As I am very well, thank God, why should I _keep my bed_?”

Pierre Ramus.

Pierre de la Ramée, more generally known by the name of Ramus, was born in 1515, in a village in Normandy. His parents were of the poorest rank; his grandfather being a charbonnier, a calling similar to that of our coalheaver, and his father a laborer. Poverty being his consequent inheritance, Ramus was early left to his own resources; no sooner, therefore, had he attained the age of eight years, than he repaired to Paris. The difficulty he found there of obtaining common subsistence soon obliged him to return home: another attempt, which he afterwards made, met with no better success.

Early imbued with a strong love and desire for learning, he suffered every misery and privation, in order to obtain the means necessary for its acquirement. Having received a limited aid from one of his uncles, he, for a third time, set out for Paris, where, immediately on his arrival, he entered the college of Navarre in the capacity of valet; during the day fulfilling every menial task, but devoting his nights to his dear and absorbing study.

This extreme perseverance and application, regardless of difficulties, obtained its consequent reward. Being admitted to the degree of master of arts, which he received with all its accompanying scholastic honors, he was enabled to devote himself with more intensity to study. By the opinions which he promulgated, in the form of a thesis, respecting the philosophy of Aristotle,――a doubt of whose sovereign authority at that time was considered a profane and audacious sacrilege,――he attracted the attention of the scholars of the time, and ultimately their enmity. With the uncompromising hardihood of his character, he continued to deny the infallibility of the favorite code of philosophy, and published, in support of his opinions, two volumes of criticisms upon Aristotle’s works.

Ramus was at first persecuted merely with scholastic virulence, but, on his further irritating his opponents, a serious accusation was brought against him, before the Parliament of Paris; and to such lengths had the matter gone as to call for the mediation of Francis the First.

Ramus was found guilty, and sentenced, in 1543, to vacate his professorship, and his works were interdicted throughout the kingdom. This severe sentence, however, did not produce the effect desired by the Sorbonne; for, in the following year, he was appointed to a professorship in the college of Presles, and, in 1551, received the further appointment of royal professor of philosophy and rhetoric. His opinions had, however, attracted the attention and enmity of a more powerful body than that of the Sorbonne. To contest the infallibility of Aristotle, at the same time that it attacked scholastic prejudices, was sufficient to provoke a revolution even in theology. The consequence to Ramus was implacable hatred from the ecclesiastical body, who seemed intent upon his destruction.

One of the great subjects of reform attempted by Ramus, and which created the greatest animosity against him, was that which had for its object the introduction of a democratical government into the church. He pretended that the consistories alone ought to prepare all questions of doctrine, and submit them to the judgment of the faithful. The people, according to his tenets, possessed in themselves the right of choosing their ministers, of excommunication, and absolution.

[Illustration: _Peter Ramus._]

The persecution of Ramus was carried to such an extent, that, according to Bayle, he was obliged to conceal himself. At the king’s instigation, he for some time secreted himself at Fontainbleau, where, by the aid of the works he found in the royal library, he was enabled to prosecute his geometrical and astronomical studies. On his residence there being discovered, he successively concealed himself in different places, thinking by that means to evade his relentless persecutors. During his absence, his library at Presles was given up to public pillage.

On the proclamation of peace, in the year 1563, between Charles the Ninth and the Protestants, Ramus returned to his professorship, devoting himself principally to the teaching of mathematics. On the breaking out of the second civil war, in 1567, he was again obliged to quit Paris, and seek protection in the Huguenot camp, where he remained until the battle of St. Denis. A few months after this, on peace being again proclaimed, he once more returned to his professorial duties; but, foreseeing the inevitable approach of another war, and fearing the consequent result, he sued for the king’s permission of absence, under the plea of visiting the German academies, which being granted, he retired to Germany, in 1568, where he was received with every demonstration of honor. Ramus returned to France on the conclusion of the third war, in 1571, and perished in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, as related by Moreri in the following words:――

“Ramus having concealed himself during the tumult of the massacre, he was discovered by the assassins sent by Charpentier, his competitor. After having paid a large sum of money, in the hopes of bribing his assassins to preserve his life, he was severely wounded, and thrown from the window into the court beneath. Partly in consequence of the wounds received and the effects of the fall, his bowels protruded. The scholars, encouraged by the presence of their professors, no sooner saw this, than they tore them from the body, and scattered them in the street, along which they dragged the body, beating it with rods, by way of contempt.”

Such was the horrid death of one of the most estimable men that ever lived. The private life of Ramus was most irreproachable. Entirely devoting himself to study and research, he refused the most lucrative preferments, choosing rather the situation of professor at the college of Presles. His temperance was exemplary: except a little bouilli, he ate little else for dinner. For twenty years he had not tasted wine, and afterwards, when he partook of it, it was by the order of his physicians. His bed was of straw; he rose early, and studied late; he was never known to foster an evil passion of any kind: he possessed the greatest firmness under misfortune. His only reproach was his obstinacy; but every man who is strongly attached to his convictions is subject to this reproach.

A Revolutionary Story.