In selecting a spot for hives, the ancients observed a rule which I do not recollect to have been mentioned by modern bee-keepers, and that was to avoid the neighbourhood of an echo,[1207] which by repeating their own buzzing and murmuring suggested the idea perhaps of invisible rivals. Place them not, says Virgil,[1208] Near hollow rocks that render back the sound, And doubled images of voice rebound. ----- Footnote 1207: Echo, in the mythology, is said to have been beloved of Pan, by which she seems tacitly to be connected with the generation of Panic Terrors Polyæn. Stratagem. i. 2. 1. Offensive smells are often reckoned among the aversions of bees, but I fear without good reason. At least they have sometimes been found to select strange places wherein to deposit their treasures of sweets. In the book of Judges, chap. xiv. ver. 8, seq., it is related that, when Samson, on his way to Timnath, turned aside to view the carcass of a young lion which he had a short time previously slain, “behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion, and he took thereof in his hands and went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them and they did eat, but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion.” Upon this passage the following may serve as a note:—“Among this pretty collection of natural curiosities, (in the cemetery of Algesiras,) one in particular attracted our attention; this was the contents of a small uncovered coffin in which lay a child, the cavity of the chest exposed and tenanted by an industrious colony of bees. The comb was rapidly progressing, and I suppose, according to the adage of the poet, they were adding sweets to the sweet, if not perfume to the violet.” Napier, Excursions on the Shores of the Mediterranean, v. i. 127. Footnote 1208: Georg. iv. 50, with the commentaries of Servius and Philargyrius; and Varro, De Re Rust. iii. 16. ----- Care was taken to conduct near the hives small runnels of the purest water, not exceeding two or three inches in depth with shells or pebbles rising dry above the surface, whereon the bees might alight to drink.[1209] When of necessity the apiary was situated on the margin of lakes or larger streams other contrivances were had recourse to for the convenience of the airy labourers. Then o’er the running stream or standing lake A passage for thy weary people make, With osier floats the standing water strow, Of massy stones make bridges if it flow, That basking in the sun thy bees may lie And resting there their flaggy pinions dry, When late returning home the laden host By raging winds is wrecked upon the coast. ----- Footnote 1209: Cf. Geop. xv. 2, 3, 4. -----