_The Wax-making Bees. An Aristocracy of Artists._--I here follow, in the main, the authority of M. Debeauvoys, in his _Guide de l'Apiculteur_ ("The Bee-keeper's Manual"), ed. 1853. In this little but important book he has made the all-important distinction which escaped Huber's notice, and separated the great wax-making architects from the little gleaners and nurses. But I ask his permission to trust rather to M. Dujardin on the general character of the bees. They are, undoubtedly, choleric, and of a very dry temperament; the liqueurs and perfumes of the flowers excite them, and compel them frequently to quench their thirst. But in themselves they are sufficiently gentle, and can even be tamed. M. Dujardin, having renewed every day the provisions of a poor hive, was readily recognized by the bees, who flew towards him, and ran over his hands without stinging him. The annual destruction which they consummate of their males is a common law with them; the wasps, and other necessitous tribes, living in dread of famine at the epoch when the flowers disappear. In America they are looked upon as the sign of civilization. The Indians see in the bee the type of the white race, and in the buffalo the precursor of the red. (Washington Irving, "Tour in the Prairies.") The bees, as sisters and aunts, remind one of the Germany of Tacitus:--"The aunt is there held in higher esteem than the mother." It must have resembled a country of bees. M. Pouchet, whom I have already cited several times, has been good enough to furnish me with a very interesting anecdote of the mason-bees:-- "In Egypt and Nubia, which I traversed some few months ago, these hymenoptera and their buildings are so abundant that the ceilings of certain temples and those of some hypogea are entirely covered with them, and they absolutely mask the sculptures and hieroglyphics. These nests frequently form there a succession of layers; and in certain localities they are superimposed one upon another in sufficient numbers to form a kind of stalactite suspended to the vaulted roofs of the monuments. In their construction the bee makes use of Nile mud only; and when she has deposited therein her progeny, she seals them up with a delicately wrought cover, which the young bee, after having undergone its various metamorphoses, lifts off and flies away. But these nests are often broken up by a species of lizard, which, by means of its singularly sharp nails, climbs to the ceilings. There it wages incessant war against the mason-bees while they are building their nests, or rather it may be seen crashing through the walls to devour their young progeny." [Illustration] NOTE 17.--Conclusion, p. 337.