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flowers of the white clover, and other rich blossoms, are opening in summer, provided with the few articles he needs to entrap the unthinking bees. A wooden plate is set down upon the ground, or on some smooth old stump, and upon it a small piece of comb, containing honey. Then watching the bees closely, while thousands of them around him are busy at work, he selects one little insect, while lodged in the cup of some bright flower, or sipping from a head of white clover, and puts quickly over it a small glass tumbler, which he carries with him.

The little bee, thus disturbed, rises up in the glass, and finds itself a captive within it. The hunter, then placing the tumbler on the wooden plate, with the piece of honeycomb within its circle, and covering the glass, so that the light cannot enter it, the bee is soon attracted by the honey, and begins to feed upon this new treasure. When several bees have been caught and imprisoned in the same way, and have eaten their fill, one is suffered to depart, and, first circling for an instant around, it rises swiftly in the air, and makes off, in a straight, or bee-line, as it is called, to its home.

The hunter marks well the course it takes, and then moving to the distance of a few hundred yards from the spot, lets a second bee fly, and then again a third, all the time marking closely the direction of their flight. If the bees take entirely opposite directions, he supposes them to have come from different hives; but if the spot from which the first bee flew was half a mile from that where the second rose into the air, and they belonged to the same hive, each

would at once take the course toward it, in its own bee-line. As they never cross each other's track, but go straight to their home, these beelines are sure to meet somewhere in the distance; and at the point where they meet, will be found the hive.

To track them on the line of their flight, so as to judge of this point, is the hunter's great care; and he rarely fails to find the spot, where, in some hollow, but not much decayed tree, these busy creatures have built their nest, and stored their sweets, perhaps for years. To get at the honey the tree must be cut down, and the poor insects lose every thing they possess, if, indeed, they escape with their lives. Hundreds of pounds of the most beautiful honeycomb have been found within the body of a single tree.

Even where the bee-hives are not stationary during the season of flowers, the instinct of the bee leads it always to find its home. In some countries, it is a common custom with the people to remove their hives from one district to another, that the bees may make a larger collection of honey. In Lower Egypt, the flowers do not bloom so carly by several weeks as in Upper Egypt, where the climate is milder. About the end of October, the hives are collected together from the different villages, numbered, marked with the names of the owners, and placed in boats prepared for the purpose. The boatmen take charge of them, and they are conveyed slowly up and down the river Nile, stopping a few days at a time, at certain stages of the journey, where the pasture for the bees is most plentiful-the hives remaining in

the boats. In about three months, they are returned to the place from which they had been carried; the little bees having in this way visited the sweet orange-flowers of the country, the Arabian jessamine, and a variety of other blossoms, repaying their owners for their care of them with a quantity of nice honey, and an abundant supply of bees' wax.

In France, also, the hives are shifted from place to place in the woods, being placed on a kind of cart; and at a proper season the honey is obtained from them.

Thou cheerful bee! come, freely come,
And travel round my woodbine bower,
Delight me with thy wandering hum.
And rouse me from my musing hour.
Oh, try no more yon tedious fields,
Come, taste the sweets my garden yields;
The treasure of each blooming mine,
The bud-the blossom-all are thine,

And, careless of the noontide heat,
I'll follow as thy ramble guides,
To watch thee pause to chafe thy feet,
And sweep them o'er thy downy sides:
Now in a flower-bell, nestling lie,
And there thy busiest labour ply;
Then o'er the stem, though fair it grow,
With touch rejected, glance and go.

O nature kind! O labourer wise!

Thou roam'st along the summer ray,
Glean'st every bliss thy life supplies,
And meet'st, prepared, thy wintry day :-
Go-envied, go-with crowded gates,
The hive thy rich return awaits:

Bear home thy store in triumph gay,
And shame each idler on thy way!

When a child is watching an industrious bee gathering the honey he may thus address it :Pretty little busy bee,

I must work as well as thee.

JAMES

AND ROBERT,

OR,

ONE SIN AND TWO,

ON a fine morning, James and Robert, two boys who lived near each other, set out together for school; but, instead of going there, they hid their books in a deep hole in a rock on the road, and went away over the meadows to a large wood. They played about there the whole day. The sun shone brightly, and the tall green trees looked beautiful, with the little streams running by them sparkling in the light. The boys were delighted for some time with gathering nuts, watching the birds in their nests, and chasing butterflies and bees. But do you think they felt quite easy and pleasant? When grown-up people or children do anything wrong, something says in their hearts: This is a sin; God will be angry." That something is called conscience. Conscience told James and Robert, "It is very pleasant to be here; but it is not right." Our duty is whatever we ought to do. Conscience whispered, 'It is your duty to be at school." We shall see presently which of them listened most to it.

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At,last, the hour came when school-time was over, and the boys were expected home. They hastened back, got their books, and went each to his father's house. Their parents did not ask them any questions, and after supper they went to bed. Now it happened that the fault of one of them was forgiven, but the other added to his. I will tell you how it was.

James was alone in his room, and when he

should go to his evening prayer, he began to think something in this way: "What we did to-day was very wrong: my father and mother were hard at work, and I was very idle. I sinned against God, I deceived my parents, and made myself unhappy." Tears came into his eyes, and he knelt down to confess his sins to God, and cry for pardon through the blood of Jesus Christ. Just then he heard a noise in the next room, and a light flashed through the door. It was his father, who came up to look for some papers that he wanted. James was very glad, for he wished to speak to him; he called, "Father, father, come here for a few minutes;" he went in, and James told him all that had happened. He was very sorry to hear that his son had done wrong; but said he would forgive him, because he saw his sin, and showed that he was really sorry by confessing it, though not threatened with punishment: he repented.

Do you know what repentance is? It means to be sorry when we do wrong: it is not to be sorry for being punished, or for the trouble that sin brings on us; it is to be sorry for doing what God forbids, that God who gives us every good we have, and, above all, gave his dear Son to die for sinners like us.

Do not say to yourself, "I will do wrong, and then I can repent." If you really love God, you will not like to do anything to grieve him. But Robert-did he repent? As he lay in bed waiting till some one came to take away the light, he also thought of the day; but he would not listen to his conscience: he said to himself, "How well it was that we were not

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