circuitous route they could easily baffle him. But the honey-bee has
absolutely no wit or cunning outside of her special gifts as a gatherer
and storer of honey. She is a simple-minded creature, and can be
imposed upon by any novice. Yet it is not every novice that can find
a bee-tree. The sportsman may track his game to its retreat by the aid
of his dog, but in hunting the honey-bee one must be his own dog, and
track his game through an element in which it leaves no trail. It is
a task for a sharp, quick eye, and may test the resources of the best
wood-craft. One autumn when I devoted much time to this pursuit, as
the best means of getting at nature and the open-air exhilaration,
my eye became so trained that bees were nearly as easy to it as birds.
I saw and heard bees wherever I went. One day, standing on a street
corner in a great city, I saw above the trucks and the traffic a line
of bees carrying off sweets from some grocery or confectionery shop.

One looks upon the woods with a new interest when he suspects they hold
a colony of bees. What a pleasing secret it is; a tree with a heart of
comb-honey, a decayed oak or maple with a bit of Sicily or Mount
Hymettus stowed away in its trunk or branches; secret chambers where
lies hidden the wealth of ten thousand little freebooters, great
nuggets and wedges of precious ore gathered with risk and labor from
every field and wood about.

But if you would know the delights of bee-hunting, and how many sweets
such a trip yields beside honey, come with me some bright, warm, late
September or early October day. It is the golden season of the year,
and any errand or pursuit that takes us abroad upon the hills or by the
painted woods and along the amber colored streams at such a time is
enough. So, with haversacks filled with grapes and peaches and apples
and a bottle of milk,--for we shall not be home to dinner,--and armed