Few places are so happily situated as to afford bees proper pasturage both in the beginning of the season and also the autumn; it was the advice of Celsus that, after the vernal pastures are consumed, they should be transported to places abounding with autumnal flowers; as was practised by conveying the bees from Achaia to Attica, from Euboea and the Cyclad Islands to Syrus, and also in Sicily, where they were brought to Hybla from other parts of the island. Pliny states that the custom of removing bees from place to place for fresh pasturage was frequent in the Roman territories, and such is still the practice of the Italians who live near the banks of the Po, (the river which Pliny particularly instances,) mentioned by Alexander de Montfort, who says that the Italians treat their bees in nearly the same manner as the Egyptians did and still do; that they load boats with hives and convey them to the neighbourhood of the mountains of Piedmont; that in proportion as the bees gather in their harvest, the boats, by growing heavier, sink deeper into the water; and that the watermen determine from this, when their hives are loaded sufficiently, and it is time to carry them back to their places from which they came. The same author relates that the people of the country of Juliers used the same practice; for that, at a certain season of the year, they carried their bees to the foot of mountains that were covered with wild thyme. M. Maillet, who was the French Consul in Egypt in 1692, says in his curious description of Egypt; "that in spite of the ignorance and rusticity which have got possession of that country, there yet remain in it several traces of the industry and skill of the ancient Egyptians." One of their most admirable contrivances is, the sending their bees annually into different districts to collect food, at a time when they could not find any at home. About the end October, all such inhabitants of Lower Egypt, as have hives of bees, embark them on the Nile, and convey them up that river quite into Upper Egypt; observing to time it so that they arrive there just when the inundation is withdrawn, the lands have been sown, and the flowers begin to bud. The hives thus sent are marked and numbered by their respective owners, and placed pyramidically in boats prepared for the purpose. After they have remained some time at their furthest station, and are supposed to have gathered all the pollen and honey they could find in the fields within two or three leagues around, their conductors convey them in the same boats, two or three leagues lower down, and there leave the laborious insects so long a time as is necessary for them to collect all the riches of this spot. Thus the nearer they come to the place of their more permanent abode, they find the plants which afford them food, forward in proportion.