Apiarist

“ In the cultivation of the habit of observation, a person becomes constantly more able, useful and susceptible to pleasure, results which also follow as surely on the habit of thought and study. It is hardly conceivable that the wide-awake apiarist, who is so frequently busy with his wonder-working comrades of the hive, can ever be lonely, or feel time hanging heavily on his hands. ”

“ Every apiarist will receive great benefit by dissecting these parts and studying their form and relations for himself. By getting his children interested in the same, he will have conferred upon them one of the rarest of blessings. ”

“ Should the apiarist feel nervous, he can very readily brush them away, or destroy them by use of any of the fly poisons which are kept in the markets. As these poisons are made attractive by adding sweets, we must be careful to preclude the bees from gaining access to them. As we should use them in spring, and as we then need to keep the quilt or honey-board close above the bees, and as the ants cluster above the brood chamber, it is not difficult to practice poisoning. ”

“ Langstroth supposes that they receive some royal jelly, purposely given by the workers, and I had previously thought this reasonable, and probably true. But these pests of the apiarist, and especially of the breeder, almost always, so far as I have observed, make their appearance in colonies long queenless, and I have noticed a case similar to that given by Quinby, where these occurred in a nucleus where no queen had been developed. May it not be true, that a desire for eggs stimulates growth of the ovaries, growth of eggs in the ovarian tubes, and consequent ability to deposit. ”

“ In this work of self-preparation, he will find great aid in visiting the nearest successful and intelligent apiarist. If successful, such an one will have a reputation; if intelligent, he will take the journals, and will show by his conversation that he knows of the methods and views of his brother apiarists, and above all, he will not think he knows it all, and that his is the only way to success. Learn all you can - 118 - of such, an one, but always let your own judgment and common sense sit as umpire, that you make no plans or decisions that your judgment does not fully sustain. ”

“ Even the worst aspect of the case—in favor of which I think, though in opposition to such excellent apiarists as Marvin, Heddon, etc., that there is no proof, and but few suggestions even—that these calamities are the effects of an epidemic, would be all powerless to dishearten men trained to reason from effect to cause. ”

“ Again, A. apicalis is an animated, fussy species, always restless, and seldom silent. I resolved to keep an eye open for others. About a mile away, and in similar scrub, I came across a second pair, and, though it was early in the breeding season, I resolved to watch them, in the hope that they were building. After the exercise of much patience, I followed them to a sheltered spot in the scrub which they seemed loth to leave. There I spied a neat, dome-shaped nest, placed low down, without any concealment, in the tea-tree scrub. It looked remarkably substantial for an Acanthiza's nest. ”

“ However, this luckless epicure was informed that the shrimps in Africa were more monstrous; and he embarks without losing a day. He encounters a great storm, and through imminent danger arrives at the shores of Africa. The fishermen bring him the largest for size their nets could furnish. Apicius shakes his head: "Have you never any larger?" he inquires. The answer was not favourable to his hopes. Apicius rejects them, and fondly remembers the shrimps of his own Minturna. He orders his pilot to return to Italy, and leaves Africa with a look of contempt. ”

“ This prodigious exuberance of animal life has justly entitled the Apure to the reputation of being{139} a land of plenty; but, alas, it is also a land of death! as, from the bottom of these extensive marshes miasmas of a pestilential nature are continually arising, which, at certain seasons of the year, render this fine country almost uninhabitable for man. ”

“ All is over, and the place is very silent, except for the clink of hammers where they are breaking down our wooden walls, and, seaward, the cry and splash of gull and tern dipping for their prey in the shoal of herring-fry which is wandering about the bay. Close inshore a porpoise is wallowing, like the jolly sea-pig that he is, in his berth of glistening water. ”

“ The most interesting as well as the most active month in the apiarian's calendar has now commenced; food for his little favourites abounds in every direction, and no fear need now be entertained of famine. ”

“ Nature has amply provided it with the means of securing its prey; for besides several rows of teeth formed in the manner most adapted for penetrating the hardest bodies, the internal part of the mouth is likewise furnished with various asperities that serve to prevent the egress of any substance that it has laid hold of.
Had we been trading to India, we should not have failed to collect a quantity of the fins of this fish, as they are in great request amongst the Chinese, who believe them to be a very powerful aphrodisiac. ”

“ This animal, known by the name of Aperea, is exceedingly common in the neighbourhood of the several towns which stand on the banks of the Rio Plata. It frequents different kinds of stations,—such as hedge-rows made of the Agave and Opuntia, or sand hillocks, or again, marshy places covered with aquatic plants;—the latter appearing to be its favourite haunt. Where the soil is dry, it makes a burrow ”

“ Apicius esteemed highly oysters from the lake of Lucrinus, from Brindes, and Abydos, and studied deeply the succulent qualities of this shell fish. He knew how to preserve them fat, fresh, and alive, during long and fatiguing journeys; and, thanks to a delicate attention on the part of this immortal bon vivant, the great Trajan was enabled to regale himself with oysters sent from Rome while carrying on a distant war against the Parthians. ”

“ Ernest.—I am much disposed to think it is some huge sea-monster, a grampus or a whale that raises up its back sometimes like an isle, on which are a quantity of small fishes that offer an easy prey to the birds; on this account they follow the monster, striving greedily to seize all they can in darting on it: those that succeed, fly off with their prey, and the rest pursue to snatch it from them. ”

“ Fiercely the shining one struggled, lashing with tail and fins till the water swirled to a boil over the shell-covered rock, and the sea-anemones all about shut their gorgeous, greedy flower-cups in a panic. But the struggle was a vain one. Slowly, inexorably, that mottled tentacle curled downward with its prey, and a portion of the under side of the rock became alive! Two ink-black eyes appeared, bulging, oval, implacable; and between them opened a great, hooked beak, like a giant parrot’s. ”

“ When a pagurus is on the march it resembles a nest of pirates, who never cease their exploits till all has been ravaged around them. This shell is so innocent in its appearance, that it introduces itself everywhere without provoking the least suspicion. ”

“ The gull and albatross are regarded as sacred, for it is the belief of the seaman that some day he will return to earth as a gull or albatross. Each one of these birds is the soul of a seaman. The white gulls are good souls. The brown or black gulls are bad souls, the "sea devils." When you are running before the trade wind south of the equator, the appearance of the albatross is a great event in the monotony of the voyage. Majestically the great white bird sweeps up and down, now before the bow now behind the stern, and circles the ship. ”

“ But now, if it please you, we will assume with Aemilianus that fish are useful for making magical charms as well as for their usual purposes. But does that prove that whoever acquires fish is ipso facto a magician? On those lines it might be urged that whoever acquires a sloop is a pirate, whoever acquires a crowbar a burglar, whoever acquires a sword an assassin. You will say that there is nothing in the world, however harmless, that may not be put to some bad use, nothing so cheerful that it may not be given a gloomy meaning. ”

“ The trunk narrow and long, the flattened head with wide open, broad jaws lined with a terrible set of long, pointed, rake-like teeth. Anything they catch hold of is lost.
With strong strokes the pirate rows through his element. Nothing is safe from him. He feeds on the small Frogs and Snakes, Carp, Trout and White Fish. Like the Shark in the ocean, the blood-thirsty tyrant is master of the surroundings in every fresh water settlement. He snatches young Ducks, and often destroys whole broods. ”

“ Among the swarm of small crustaceans moving around on the sandy bottom, hunting, eating, or fighting with a ferocious entanglement of claws, the onlookers always search for a bizarre and extravagant little creature, the paguro, nicknamed "Bernard, the Hermit." It is a snail that advances upright as a tower, upon crab claws, yet having as a crown the long hair of a sea-anemone. ”

“ THE RING OF POLYCRATES
In accordance with my custom of ending the Fishing of each nation by a story in which fish play directly or indirectly an important part, I searched for an Egyptian tale or legend. The serpent Apep in the Ra myth is merely a variant of similar beasts figuring in the Bel and Andromeda legends: his story, moreover, lacks the stir of battle of the former, or the human interest of the latter. [885] The absence of any such legend is due doubtless to the bad esteem in which fish were held by the priests, who in the early days, at any rate, wrote the history of the country. ”

“ While the Uriticu is inhabited by fierce crocodiles, the Apure is the home of a small fish called the "carabito," which attacks bathers with great fury, often biting out large pieces of flesh. It is only four or five inches long, but more formidable than the largest crocodile, and the waters it frequents are carefully avoided by the Indians, in spite of their fondness for bathing, and the relief it affords them, persecuted as they are by ants and mosquitoes. ”

“ None could laugh, though the Ape-man had a chattering titter. Beyond these general characters their heads had little in common; each preserved the quality of its particular species: the human mark distorted but did not hide the leopard, the ox, or the sow, or other animal or animals, from which the creature had been moulded. The voices, too, varied exceedingly. The hands were always malformed; and though some surprised me by their unexpected human appearance, almost all were deficient in the number of the digits, clumsy about the finger-nails, and lacking any tactile sensibility. ”

“ After pirates, birds of prey! that is according to the order of things.
Swarms of condors, vultures, and urubus came hovering over the dead bodies, upon which they fell uttering sharp cries, and made a horrible carnage of human flesh, in sight of the Mexicans, who did not dare to leave their entrenchments, and were forced to remain spectators of this hideous banquet of the wild creatures.
The pirates rallied in a ravine, out of reach of the fire, and counted their numbers. ”

“ And in the centre of this net-work of living traps is the chasm-like mouth, with its enormous parrot-beak, ready to rend piecemeal whatever is held by the tentaculae. The very thought of it makes one's flesh crawl. ”

“ Within the memory of man, the white people of Apia lay in the worst squalor of degradation. They are now unspeakably improved, both men and women. To-day they must be called a more than fairly respectable population, and a much more than fairly intelligent. ”

“ I know an apiarian, who by my suggestion has wintered from sixty to eighty stocks in this way, for the last six years, with perfect success, not having lost one. Another has wintered thirty with equal safety. ”

“ When people rest duality of sex in the eel on the assertion that the head of the male is bigger and longer, and the head of the female smaller and more snubbed, they are taking diversity of species for diversity of sex.
There are certain fish that are nicknamed the epitragiae, or capon-fish, and, by the way, fish of this description are found in fresh water, as the carp and the balagrus. This sort of fish never has either roe or milt; but they are hard and fat all over, and are furnished with a small gut; and these fish are regarded as of super-excellent quality. ”

“ These apes (he adds) seem in some respects to be more sagacious than men; for when they no longer find fruits on the mountains, they descend to the seashore, where they catch and feed on crabs, oysters, and other shell-fish. ”

“ On that side which is next the inner lip or column of the shell, and beneath the breast of the Crab, there opens a wide oblong mouth, in all essential particulars like that of an Actinia, surrounded by a delicate fringe of short white tentacles; which in general are freely exposed, seeking for prey; the animal being little alarmed by the rude treatment to which the peregrinations of its active companion expose it. ”

“ It appears from the testimonies of the ancients, that the pithecos, or pigmy, was the most gentle and docile of all the ape species that were known to them; and that it was common in Asia, as well as in Lybia, and in the other provinces of Africa, frequented by the Greek and Roman travellers. Therefore I presume that we must refer the following passages of Leo Africanus, and Marmol to the pigmy. They say, that the apes with long tails, which are seen in Mauritania, and are called by the Africans mones, come from the negro country ”