prey secured, and then return home with my prize. The first bees I
ever procured were thus found in the woods, by mere accident; for at
that time I had no kind of skill in this method of tracing them. The
body of the tree being perfectly sound, they had lodged themselves
in the hollow of one of its principal limbs, which I carefully sawed
off and with a good deal of labour and industry brought it home,
where I fixed it up again in the same position in which I found it
growing. This was in April; I had five swarms that year, and they
have been ever since very prosperous. This business generally takes
up a week of my time every fall, and to me it is a week of solitary
ease and relaxation.

The seed is by that time committed to the ground; there is nothing
very material to do at home, and this additional quantity of honey
enables me to be more generous to my home bees, and my wife to make
a due quantity of mead. The reason, Sir, that you found mine better
than that of others is, that she puts two gallons of brandy in each
barrel, which ripens it, and takes off that sweet, luscious taste,
which it is apt to retain a long time. If we find anywhere in the
woods (no matter on whose land) what is called a bee-tree, we must
mark it; in the fall of the year when we propose to cut it down, our
duty is to inform the proprietor of the land, who is entitled to
half the contents; if this is not complied with we are exposed to an
action of trespass, as well as he who should go and cut down a bee-
tree which he had neither found out nor marked.

We have twice a year the pleasure of catching pigeons, whose numbers
are sometimes so astonishing as to obscure the sun in their flight.
Where is it that they hatch? for such multitudes must require an
immense quantity of food. I fancy they breed toward the plains of