filling the air over the garden, and whirling excitedly around.
Gradually they began to drift over the street; a moment more, and they
had become separated from the other bees, and, drawing together in a
more compact mass or cloud, away they went, a humming, flying vortex of
bees, the queen in the centre, and the swarm revolving around her as a
pivot,--over meadows, across creeks and swamps, straight for the heart
of the mountain, about a mile distant, --slow at first, so that the
youth who gave chase kept up with them, but increasing their speed till
only a foxhound could have kept them in sight. I saw their pursuer
laboring up the side of the mountain; saw his white shirtsleeves gleam
as he entered the woods; but he returned a few hours afterward without
any clue as to the particular tree in which they had taken refuge out
of the ten thousand that covered the side of the mountain.

The other swarm came out about one o'clock of a hot July day, and at
once showed symptoms that alarmed the keeper, who, however, threw
neither dirt nor water. The house was situated on a steep side-hill.
Behind it the ground rose, for a hundred rods or so, at an angle of
nearly forty-five degrees, and the prospect of having to chase them up
this hill, if chase them we should, promised a good trial of wind at
least; for it soon became evident that their course lay in this
direction. Determined to have a hand, or rather a foot, in the chase, I
threw off my coat and hurried on, before the swarm was yet fairly
organized and under way. The route soon led me into a field of standing
rye, every spear of which held its head above my own. Plunging
recklessly forward, my course marked to those watching from below by
the agitated and wriggling grain, I emerged from the miniature forest
just in time to see the runaways disappearing over the top of the hill,
some fifty rods in advance of me. Lining them as well as I could, I
soon reached the hilltop, my breath utterly gone and the perspiration