Why does one kind of crab steal a shell? Tell me about a crab’s eyes. How is the crab made, which likes to swim on the deep sea? What is a sea tide? How many tides are there each day? How do little crabs grow? Where do crabs hide, when they are afraid? What animals catch and eat crabs? Of what use are crabs? Did I tell you that some crabs eat sea-weed? What is a wasp? How many legs and wings has Mrs. Wasp? How is her body made? Why do her two wings on each side seem one? Tell me what kind of houses wasps build. What can wasps make? How do baby wasps grow? Tell me how wasps make paper. What else do you know about crabs and wasps? What can you say about a wasp’s sting? How does the wasp eat? LESSON XVII. THE BEE AND THE MAN. Did you ever see a hive of bees? Are you afraid of bees? You need not be afraid of them. They do not often sting those who let them alone. There are some people whom bees never sting. Do you see how small the bees are? Do they not move very quickly? Are not their cells very small? Now I will tell you a strange thing. The man who knew most about bees was a blind man! His name was Huber. He lost his sight when he was a boy. He loved to study. Most of all, he loved to study bees. From a boy, he had a friend. She was a kind girl. She, too, loved to study. When she grew up, she became Huber’s wife. Huber was not poor. He had a nice home of his own. He had a man to live with him and wait on him. Huber, and his wife, and the man, would go and sit by the bee-hive. They read to Huber all the books about bees that had then been made. Then they would watch the bees, to see if they did the things that were told in books. When they saw the bees do other things, they told Huber. Then they caught bees, and studied the parts of their bodies. Ask your teacher what kind of a glass they used[9] to see the bee with. The wife and the man told Huber all that they saw. He thought it all over. They watched the bees, year after year. Huber worked fifteen years. Then he made a great book on bees. He told his wife what to write. He lived to be very old. It is both from books, and by your own eyes and thought, that you may learn these things. You must watch if you would know. Give time and work to this study. FOOTNOTES: [9] The inside of a gold watch-case, held at angle 45°, is a good magnifier. The teacher should explain a little about the microscope. LESSON XVIII. HOW THE BEE IS MADE. There are many kinds of bees. The chief of them all is the hive bee. What does the hive bee make for you to eat? In each hive there are three kinds of bees. The queen bee is the first. She rules all, and she is the mother of all. The queen bee does no work. She lays eggs in the cells. The father bee is called the drone. He does no work. Who, then, builds so many fine cells? Who lays up so much honey? Who feeds the baby bees? The small, quiet, brown work bees do all that. In each hive there is one queen bee to lay eggs.