The
circumstance that the cap was momentarily placed over the insects,
struck the savages as a piece of necromancy, in particular. The
reader will understand that this is done in order to darken the
tumbler, and induce the bee to settle down on the honey so much the
sooner. To one who understood the operation and its reason, the
whole was simple enough; but it was a very different matter with men
as little accustomed to prying into the habits of creatures as
insignificant as bees. Had deer, or bisons, or bears, or any of the
quadrupeds of those regions, been the subject of the experiment, it
is highly probable that individuals could have been found in that
attentive and wondering crowd, who could have enlightened the ablest
naturalists on the subject of the animals under examination; but
when the inquiry descended to the bee, it went below the wants and
usages of savage life.
"Where you t'ink dis bee go?" demanded Peter, in English, as soon as
le Bourdon raised the tumbler.
"One will go in this direction, the other in that," answered the
bee-hunter, pointing first toward the corner of the woods, then
toward the island in the prairie--the two points toward which two of
the other bees had flown.
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