This Made Me Resolve To Kill As
Many As I Could, And I Was Just Ready To Fire, When A
Bunch of bees
as big as my fist, issued from one of the hives, rushed on one of
the birds,
And probably stung him, for he instantly screamed, and
flew, not as before, in an irregular manner, but in a direct line.
He was followed by the same bold phalanx, at a considerable
distance, which unfortunately becoming too sure of victory, quitted
their military array and disbanded themselves. By this inconsiderate
step they lost all that aggregate of force which had made the bird
fly off. Perceiving their disorder he immediately returned and
snapped as many as he wanted; nay, he had even the impudence to
alight on the very twig from which the bees had drove him. I killed
him and immediately opened his craw, from which I took 171 bees; I
laid them all on a blanket in the sun, and to my great surprise 54
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! I draw a great fund of pleasure from the quails which
inhabit my farm; they abundantly repay me, by their various notes
and peculiar tameness, for the inviolable hospitality I constantly
show them in the winter. Instead of perfidiously taking advantage of
their great and affecting distress, when nature offers nothing but a
barren universal bed of snow, when irresistible necessity forces
them to my barn doors, I permit them to feed unmolested; and it is
not the least agreeable spectacle which that dreary season presents,
when I see those beautiful birds, tamed by hunger, intermingling
with all my cattle and sheep, seeking in security for the poor
scanty grain which but for them would be useless and lost.
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