On One
Occasion, However, He Fired At A More Than Commonly Impertinent
Specimen, "And Immediately Opened His Maw, From Which
I took 171
bees; I laid them all on a blanket in the sun, and to my great
surprise fifty-
Four returned to life, licked themselves clean, and
joyfully went back to the hive, where they probably informed their
companions of such an adventure and escape, as I believe had never
happened before to American bees." Must one regard this as a fable?
It is by no means as remarkable a yarn as one may find told by other
naturalists of the same century. There is, for example, that undated
letter of John Bartram's, in which he makes inquiries of his brother
William concerning "Ye Wonderful Flower;" [Footnote: see "A
Botanical Marvel," in The Nation (New York), August 5, 1909.] there
is, too, Kalm's report of Bartram's bear: "When a bear catches a
cow, he kills her in the following manner: he bites a hole into the
hide and blows with all his power into it, till the animal swells
excessively and dies; for the air expands greatly between the flesh
and the hide." After these fine fancies, where is the improbability
of Crevecoeur's modest adaptation of the Jonah-allegory that he
applies to the king-bird and his bees? The episode suggests, for
that matter, a chapter in Mitchell's My Farm at Edgewood. Mitchell,
a later American farmer, describes the same king-birds, the same
bees; has, too, the same supremely gentle spirit.
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