We come now to a notion more widely prevalent than either of the preceding, and perhaps even more absurd. We allude to the supposed necessity of informing the bees of the death of their owner or of any member of his family. So strongly is this fallacy held, that in many country districts, especially among the cottagers, the question after a decease in the household "Have the bees been told?" is almost as much a matter of course as an inquiry whether the undertaker has been sent for. Even in the depth of winter, it is thought by believers in this superstition needful to "wake the bees," albeit we know that they are not asleep, and tell them of the sad event, in which they are supposed to have so profound an interest. In Maude's _Antiquities_ we read of the following case in point: "A gentleman at a dinner table happened to mention that he was surprised, on the death of a relative, by his servant inquiring whether his master would inform the bees of the event, or whether he should do so. On asking the meaning of so strange a question, the servant assured him that bees ought always to be informed of a death in the family, or they would resent the neglect by deserting the hive. This gentleman resides in the Isle of Ely, and the anecdote was told in Suffolk. One of the party present, a few days afterwards took the opportunity of testing the prevalence of this strange notion, by inquiring of a cottager, who had lately lost a relative, and happened to complain of the loss of her bees, whether she had told them all she ought to do. She immediately replied, 'Oh! yes, when my aunt died I told every skep myself, and put them into mourning.' I have since ascertained the existence of the same superstition in Cornwall, Devonshire, Gloucestershire (where I have seen black crape put round the hive or on a small stick by its side), and Yorkshire. There are many other singular notions afloat as to these insects. In Oxfordshire I was told that, if man and wife quarrelled, the bees would leave them. "In the _Living Librairie_, Englished by John Molle, 1621, page 283, we read, 'Who would beleeve without superstition (if experience did not make it credible) that most commonly all the bees die in their hives if the master or mistress of the house chance to die, except the hives be presently removed into some other place? And yet I know this hath hapned to folke no way stained with superstition.' A vulgar prejudice prevails in many places of England that, when bees remove or go away from their hives, the owner of them will die soon after."