After Two Of The Combs Had Been Let Down, The Bees Became Rather
Numerous Below, Flying About Wildly And Stinging Viciously.
Several
got about me, and I was soon stung, and had to run away, beating them
off with my net and capturing them for specimens.
Several of them
followed me for at least half a mile, getting into my hair and
persecuting me most pertinaciously, so that I was more astonished than
ever at the immunity of the natives. I am inclined to think that slow
and deliberate motion, and no attempt at escape, are perhaps the best
safeguards. A bee settling on a passive native probably behaves as it
would on a tree or other inanimate substance, which it does not
attempt to sting. Still they must often suffer, but they are used to
the pain and learn to bear it impassively, as without doing so no man
could be a bee-hunter.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE TIMOR GROUP.
IF we look at a map of the Archipelago, nothing seems more unlikely
than that the closely connected chain of islands from Java to Timor
should differ materially in their natural productions. There are, it
is true, certain differences of climate and of physical geography, but
these do not correspond with the division the naturalist is obliged to
make. Between the two ends of the chain there is a great contrast of
climate, the west being exceedingly moist and leaving only a short and
irregular dry season, the east being as dry and parched up, and having
but a short wet season.
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