I have already treated of the disposition of bees to use their stings, when irritated, either by direct interference with them, or by the approach of persons to whom they have an antipathy. +Virgil+ has, in strong terms, noticed their irascibility:--when once provoked, says he, they set no bounds to their anger, but "Deem life itself to vengeance well resign'd, Die on the wound, and leave their stings behind." _Fatal consequences_ occurring from their wounds are not often heard of, though such I believe have occasionally happened. +Messrs. Kirby+ and +Spence+ relate an instance of a violent fever being produced, by the injury they inflicted, and in which the person's recovery was for some time doubtful. +Mungo Park+ also mentions, in his Travels, an instance of severe annoyance from them, and states that he lost several asses in Africa owing to their being attacked by bees. +Mr. Talbot+, in his Five Years Residence in the Canadas, states, that during the summer of 1820, the _Rev. Ralph Leeming_ having sent a fine horse to grass at a neighbouring farmer's, who kept about twenty stocks of bees, the animal got upon the lawn where the hives were placed, and by accident overturned one of them, the bees of which attacked him with great virulence. The horse, rearing and kicking from agony, overthrew another hive. Having thus doubled the number of his assailants, his sufferings brought him to the ground, and in less than five minutes from the commencement of the attack the poor animal was literally stung to death. The anger of bees is not confined to man, and other large animals; it is sometimes vented upon their own kind, not only in single combat, but in conflicts of organized masses. Cases of the former kind every observer must have noticed; and of the latter, several instances have been related by +Reaumur+, +Thorley+, +Knight+, and others. The engagement, witnessed by +Thorley+, lasted more than two days, and originated in a swarm's attempting to take possession of an already occupied hive. Remarkable battles of this kind have also been related by other writers. Whenever the angry excitation is diffused through a whole community, a great accession of heat is produced in the hive.