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No part of the natural history of the bee is more interesting than that which relates to its attachment to the queen.

"Dr. Warder being desirous of ascertaining the extent of the bee's loyalty to their sovereign, ran the hazard of destroying a swarm for that purpose. Having shaken on the grass all the bees from a hive, which they had only tenanted the day before, he searched for the queen, by stirring amongst them with a stick. Having found and placed her, with a few attendants, in a box, she was taken into his parlour; where, the box being opened, she and her attendants immediately flew to the window, when he clipped off one of her wings, returned her to the box, and confined her there for above an hour. In less than a quarter of an hour the swarm ascertained the loss of their queen, and instead of clustering together in one social mass, they diffused themselves over a space of several feet, were much agitated, and uttered a plaintive sound. An hour afterwards they all took flight, and settled on the hedge where they had first alighted, after leaving the parent stock; but instead of hanging together like a bunch of grapes, as when a queen is present, they extended themselves along the hedge in small bunches of forty or fifty, or more. The queen was now presented to them, when they all quickly gathered round her, with a joyful hum, and formed one harmonious cluster. At night the doctor hived them again, and on the following morning repeated the experiment, to see whether the bees would rise; the queen being in a mutilated state, and unable to accompany them, they surrounded her for several hours, apparently willing to die with her, rather than desert her in her distress. The queen was a second time removed, when they spread themselves out again, as though searching for her. Her repeated restoration to them, at different parts of their circle, produced one uniform result; and these poor, loyal, and loving creatures, always marched and countermarched every way as the queen was laid. The doctor persevered in these experiments, till, after five days and nights of (voluntary) fasting, they all died of famine, except the queen, who lived a few hours longer, and then died. The attachment of the queen to the working bees appeared to be equally as strong as their attachment to her; though offered honey on several occasions during the periods of her separation from them, she constantly refused it, disdaining life without the company of her subjects."

Huber thus describes the effect of the removal of a queen :

"Bees are not immediately aware of the removal of their queen; their labours are uninterrupted; they watch over the young, &c. But in a few hours agitation ensues; all appears a scene of tumult and confusion.

A singular humming is heard; the bees de-
sert their young, and rush over the surface
of the combs with delirious impetuosity."-
"I cannot doubt that the agitation arises
from the workers having lost their queen;
for, on restoring her, tranquillity is instantly
regained among them; and what is very sin-
gular, they recognise her: you must interpret
this expression strictly. Substitution of an-
other queen is not attended with the same
effect."

On

Even the dead body of their queen is a subject for the respect and affection of the workers; and they have, according to Huber, preferred "the inanimate corpse to any living queen." Dr. Evans relates the following affecting anecdote. A queen, in a thinlypeopled hive, lay on a comb apparently dying. Six workers surrounded her, seemingly in intent regard, quivering their wings, as if to fan her, and with extended stings, as if to keep off intruders or assailants. presenting honey, all the bees, except the guards, partook of it; but they, absorbed in their mournful duty, disregarded the proffered banquet. On the following day the queen, though lifeless, was yet surrounded · by her guard; and of this faithful band of followers, not one deserted his post, until death came kindly to extinguish both his affection and his grief. Our friend Professor Thomson relates, that having separated a part of a sectional hive with its honey, he covered the hive as usual, and conveyed the separated portion to a dark room in his house. The queen happened to be in the part removed. After several days, he found the bees which it contained at work on the combs, though the box lay in an inverted position, and open at the top. Through a small aperture between the window shutters they had gone out, and come in, and were content to reside with their queen in a dark chamber, and in a roofless box. The bees left in the hive, soon discovered the loss of the queen, and kept lounging and clustering about the box, apparently without spirit and without aim. The restoration of the section with the queen reanimated them, and the business of the society again proceeded as usual.

FROM THE ROMAIC.

WHEN we were last, my gentle maid,
In love's embraces twining,
'Twas Night, who saw, and then betray'd!
"Who saw? Yon moon was shining,
A gossip star shot down, and he,
First told our secret to the sea.
The Sea, who never secret kept,
The peevish, blustering railer!
Told it the Oar, as on he swept;

The Oar inform'd the Sailor.
The Sailor whisper'd it to his fair,
And she-she told it every where!

New Monthly Mag

THE SPHINX.

AN EXTRAVAGANZA, ETCHED IN THE MANNER OF CALLOT.

(From Blackwood's Magazine.)

"OLD fashioned sticks! Rational sticks! Sticks for sober citizens!" exclaimed an old woman, standing with a bundle of sticks before her, on that pleasant public walk in Hamburgh, called the Jungfern-stieg. Her stock in trade comprised canes and walkingsticks in endless variety, and many of them were adorned with knobs of ivory and bone carved into grotesque heads and animal forms, abounding in grimace and absurdity. It was early in the day, the passengers were all hurrying in the eager pursuit of business, and for a long time the old woman found no customers.

At length she observed a tall and wellgrown youth, attired in that old Teutonic costume which it has pleased the enthusiastic students of Germany to revive in the nineteenth century. His step was the light bound of youth and happiness, and there was a kindling glance in his deep blue eye, and an involuntary smile at play upon his lip, which indicated that the cares of life were yet unknown to him. Soon as the keen orbs of the old woman discerned him, she screamed, with renewed energy-" Rare sticks! Noble sticks! Knob and club-sticks for students! Canes for loungers! Fancy sticks! Poetical sticks! Romantic sticks! Mad sticks! and sticks possessed with a devil!"

“The devil you have, Mother Hecate!" exclaimed our student, as he approached her; "then I must have one of them; so look out the maddest stick in your infernal collection.". "If you choose the maddest stick in my stock, you must pay a mad price for it," said the old woman. "Here is one with a devil in it, and mad enough to turn the brain of any one who buys it; but the lowest price is a dollar."

With these words she held up to his inspection a knotted stick, on which was carved in bone the withered and skinny visage of an old woman, with hollow eyes and cheeks, a hook-nose, and chin as sharp as hatchets, and tending towards each other like a pair of pincers: in short, the very image of the old hag before him.

"Buy that stick, I'll warrant it a good one," whispered a musical voice in his ear. Arnold turned quickly round, and saw a youth of graceful figure, clad in the fancy costume of an English jockey, who nodded to him smilingly, and disappeared in the crowd. While Arnold was gazing in silent wonder at the stranger youth, the old woman, who had also observed him, renewed her vociferations, with "Sticks à-la-mode! Whips for jockeys! Canes for fops and dandies, fools and monkeys!"

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed the startled student, "this poor creature must be madder than her whole collection. "Twill be charity to purchase."

With mingled feelings of pity and disgust, he threw down a dollar, seized the stick, and hastened from her unpleasant vicinity. Soon as his back was turned, she saluted him with piercing screams of "Spick-and-span new sticks! Rods for treasure-seekers! Wands for harlequins and conjurors! Sticks for beggars to ride to the devil on! Broomsticks for witches and warlocks! Crutches for the devil and his grandmother!" and concluded with a laugh so horribly unnatural, so truly maniacal, that he sprung forward in alarm, and was on the point of throwing away his stick to banish the hateful resemblance from his thoughts, when, raising his hand for the purpose, instead of that horrid mask, he bebeld with astonishment the smiling features of a nymph. Looking more intently, he discovered that the knob represented a Sphinx carved in the purest ivory. The pouting and beautiful lips were curved into an arch and mysterious smile. He gazed upon it with a delight which speedily banished the hateful old woman from his thoughts, and the longer he gazed upon the laughing little Sphinx, the more enchanted he became with his prize, the more unconscious of what he was about, and whither he was going. Rambling onwards, he passed the city-gate leading towards Holstein, and wandered in absorbing reveries, until the rude contact of an oak-branch with his cap restored to our visionary Arnold the use of his faculties, and made him sensible that he was entangled at night-fall in a pathless wood of considerable extent. "What a fool I must be," he exclaimed, "to fall in love with a knob-stick, and lose myself in this ugly forest at dusk!" He burst into an involuntary laugh, which continued until he was interrupted by a yelling peal in reply. He would willingly have regarded it as the echo of his own, but there was a cutting and sarcastic tone in the responsive laugh which jarred painfully upon his excited ear, and created a suspicion that he was the sport of mirth or malice. "Surely the devil houses here!" he exclaimed, with emphasis, as he walked onward. Immediately a dozen voices answered him, and exclamations of "The devil houses here! Houses here! Here! Here!! Here!!!" resounded from all quarters.

More startled than before, he looked around him in perplexity, but a brief pause of recollection recalled his scattered senses. "Nonsense!" he muttered to himself, "these sounds are nothing but echoes; but the night is at hand, and I would willingly know where I am. But is there no lurking mischief near me?" thought he, relapsing into suspicion that all was not right in these dusky woodlands. "Come out!" he shouted, "and do your worst; be you man or devil!" There

was no immediate reply; but listening attentively, the word " devil," whispered at some distance, fell upon his startled ear, and the unhallowed sound was repeated in lower whispers, until it melted into distance. "This is beyond endurance," he exclaimed, as he rushed onward; "these cursed echoes will drive me mad."-" Mad! Mad! Mad!" replied a host of voices. "I am surely beset by a legion of devils," thought the agonized youth, while his hair stood erect, and cold drops of perspiration rolled down his face. Collecting, by a sudden effort, his scattered energies, he brandished his stick, and rushed headlong through the tangled thicket, shouting, "Have at ye all! Sprites! Witches! Ghosts! and Devils!" He plunged forward like a maniac through the wood, until he stepped upon a toad, which yielded to the pressure; he lost his footing, fell breathless on the brink of a declivity, and rolled down the shelving side of a deep ravine, where he lay a considerable time, exhausted and senseless.

When restored to consciousness, he found himself reposing upon an embroidered sofa in a baron's hall. A lovely girl, of nymphlike hues and form, and robed with elegant simplicity, stood near his couch. Tresses of the brightest chesnut fell in waving luxuriance over her ivory neck and shoulders; her soft blue eyes shot rays as mild as moonbeams upon the astonished Arnold; and around her bewitching mouth lurked a smile of indescribable archness and mystery. In short, she was the startling resemblance, the very counterpart of the pretty Sphinx-head upon his stick.

"In the name of wonder, where am I?" exclaimed Arnold, starting from the sofa, and gazing upon the lovely stranger with delight and amazement. "Have the wheels of time rolled back again? Have the romantic splendours of the middle ages risen from the dead? Or have I been translated from that bellish forest to an angel's paradise? Or has my pretty Sphinx been gifted with life and motion, like Pygmalion's statue? Or have I lost my senses? Or-pardon me, your ladyship!-you are surely no carved knob? I mean, my lady, no ivory Sphinx? I would say, that your lovely features are so mysterious and Sphinx-like, that I am perplexed and amazed beyond expression."

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"Good youth!" replied the smiling fair one, I I pray you endeavour to collect your wandering faculties. I can assure you," she continued, "that there is nothing supernatural about me or my castle, which is well known in Holstein as the country residence of the Countess Cordula. Rambling, as is my wont, by sunrise, I discovered you lying sense less in a deep hollow, near the castle. The stick you rave about is at your elbow. How it came into your possession I know not, but it

once belonged to nie; and the Sphinx-head was carved by my page Florestan, who is an ingenious little fellow, and amuses himself with carving my features, and applying them to every thing grotesque and fabulous in the animal world."

"Either my senses are the sport of dreams, or this world is altogether an enigma,” replied the still-bewildered Arnold; "I know very well that I live in the nineteenth century, and that I have studied at the University of Kiel. Common sense tells me that there are neither witches, ghosts, nor fairies, and yet I could almost swear that ever since yesterday noon I have been the sport and victim of supernatural agency. If, therefore, noble lady! you are really no fairy, but, in good faith, the Countess Cordula, and a human being, I trust you will pardon my strange language and deportment, and attribute them to the real cause-my unaccountable transition from the horrors of your park to this splendid hall, and the dazzling presence of its lovely owner."

"Singular being!" replied the blushing countess, " you have introduced yourself to me and my castle in so abrupt and original a manner, that I feel somewhat curious to become better acquainted with such an oddity. If, therefore, your time and engagements permit you to remain here a few days, I shall be happy to retain you as a guest, and to share with you the summer amusements of my secluded residence."

"Your kindness and condescension enchant me, lovely countess! I seek no happier fate," exclaimed the enraptured Arnold, pressing the hand of his fair hostess to his lips with fervent and deep delight. She acknowledged her consciousness of his undisguised admiration by a blush and smile of such flattering, such thrilling potency, that her intoxicated guest already ventured to indulge in some audacious dreams of the possible consequences which might ensue from daily and incessant intercourse with this fascinating countess.

In a glowing tumult of delightful anticipations, he obeyed an invitation of his hostess to accompany her in a stroll through the castle gardens. Here a romantic scene of hills, and woods, and waters, met the eye.

Returning to the castle, the countess led the happy student to her picture gallery, which contained some rare and admirable specimens of the old masters. The countess pointed out to him some matchless portraits painted by these great men, and dilated upon their merits with such grace, spirit, and intelligence, that the figures seemed almost to start from the canvass, when touched by the wand of this enchantress. One department of the gallery was occupied by the pictures of a modern German artist, who seemed to have drawn his inspiration from the eccentric etchings of the inimitable Jacques Callot.

Arnold, whose foible was a vivid and ill. regulated imagination, bestowed more earnest and admiring attention upon these ingenious caricatures, than he had devoted to the costly specimens of the old masters. Recollecting himself, he apologized to the countess for this singular preference, and explained it, by acknowledging himself an admirer of the eccentric tales and visions of Hoffmann, whose intense sympathy with the extravaganzas and capriccios of Callot was abundantly notorious. The countess replied only by a lifted forefinger, and an arch smile, which reminded him somewhat disagreeably of his ivory Sphinx, and he followed her in silence to the fine old gothic library, where she desired he would amuse himself for an hour, and left him. He looked around for some book in a modern garb, and discovered a volume of his favourite Hoffmann, opened at the tale of the "Golden Vase." This he devoured with a relish so absorbing, that he had no difficulty in tracing a mysterious and startling resemblance in his own adventures to those of the student Anselmo. "Surely," he exclaimed, "that student must be my double, and he, or I, or both of us, are phantasms in the manner of Callot." The sudden entrance of the countess dismounted him from his hobby, and although he felt a strong impulse to ask her if she thought he resembled a phantasm of Callot, the recollection that she had attributed his ravings about the Sphinx to temporary derangement, gave him a timely check, and the silver tones of her melodious voice dispelled entirely his delusion; he was again the happiest of men, and the blissful hours flew by unheeded, like moments.

Three days had vanished thus delightfully to our enamoured student, when, on the fourth morning, he heard with terror that the countess was confined to her apartment by indisposition, and not visible to any one. Arnold's consternation and anxiety were for some time excessive, but they gradually yielded to a growing suspicion that the countess was not altogether what she appeared. He recollected the story of the beautiful Melusina, who was at certain periods changed into a serpent, and carefully secluded herself when the hour of metamorphosis approached. His apprehension of a similar catastrophe was so enlivened by the strong resemblance of the countess to the ivory Sphinx, that forgetting alike the obligations of decorum and gratitude, he rushed onwards to her private apartment, pushed aside the opposing servants, and abruptly entered the forbidden chamber. The curtains were closely drawn to exclude the glare of daylight, and the yellow rays of a large French lamp threw a soft and mysterious light around the spacious apartment. The lofty walls were.decorated with a French landscape paper, on which were skilfully depicted the wondrous features of Egyptian

scenery. In different compartments were seen the enormous pyramids and temples; the broad and venerable Nile, with here and there a crocodile reposing in long and scaly grandeur on its margin; and opposite the door was painted, in high and full relief, the mysterious head of the Sphinx, resting its vast proportions on the drifted sand, and gazing in mild majesty over the vestiges of Egyptian grandeur, like the surviving monarch of a shattered world. The elegant Parisian furniture of this apartment was in corresponding taste, and the countess was reclining upon a couch, supported by two large and admirably sculptured Sphinxes, while all the tables and chiffoniers were resting on the same pleasant-looking monThe lovely Cordula looked pale as an ivory statue; her lips were flushed with the glow of fever, and there was in her eyes a dark and melancholy lustre. She was reclining on her side, her bosom supported by her left arm, and when the agitatep youth approached her, she raised the forefinger of her right hand, and thus addressed him"Arnold! Arnold! who are you? and who am I?"" My lovely Sphinx!" exclaimed the bewildered student, "what do I see and hear? You propose to me an enigma which it is impossible to solve. Do you think I am one of Callot's phantasms? or, do you take me for Edipus himself?"

sters.

"Arnold! Arnold!" continued the countess, in tremulous tones and evident anxiety, "if you could solve my enigma, I should expire before you; and yet my cruel destiny compels me to ask, Who are you? and who am I?" At these dreadful words, the unhappy Arnold felt his heart sink within him; his fairy visions vanished, his lips quivered with dismay, his knees smote together, his brain began to whirl, and all around him was mist and confusion. The sublime scenery which adorned the walls appeared to move around him like a panoramic landscape; the pyramids of Memphis and Saccara, the giant obelisks and temples, threw up their awful forms from earth to heaven, and stalked before him in colossal march, like spectral visions of the past. The troubled waters of the Nile began to leave their bed, and the scaly monsters on its banks to creep with opening jaws around the chamber; while the numerous sphinxes which adorned it, assuming suddenly the form and features of the countess, pointed their warning fingers at the frenzied Arnold, and with smiles of boding mystery, screamed in his shrinking ears the fatal questions-" Who are you? and who am I ?"

"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed the agonized student, "I am hedged in by all the plagues of Egypt. Forbear! in mercy forbear!" he continued in delirious terror, while he covered his aching eyes and throbbing temples with his hands. "Forbear

those horrid questions! I know not who I am. Would I had never been!" Rousing, by a desperate effort, his expiring energies, he rushed out of the apartment, and fled from the castle to the adjacent wood. After running with headlong speed for some hours, he looked up, and, to his infinite amazement, found himself within a mile of the Holstein gate of Hamburgh, and the ivory knob-stick in his hand. Slackening his pace to a sober walk, and gazing at the pretty Sphinx, he began to commune with himself. "Surely the events of the last three days cannot have been a dream? No, impossible! They were far too lively and circumstantial for a vision. But, if no dream, my Holstein countess must be well known in Hamburgh. I will make diligent search, and on the spot." He began immediately to question every passenger he met where the Countess Cordula resided; but no one had ever heard the name, or knew the stately baronial castle he described so minutely, and the vehement language, flushed cheeks, and sparkling eyes of the questioner, excited amongst the more thinking passengers a suspicion that he had drank too deeply at the maddening fount of poetry

and romance.

On the following morning he hired a house in the centre of a pleasant garden overlooking the Holstein road. He chose this situation in the latent hope that the countess had deceived him by an assumed name, and that he might one day be so fortunate as to see her equipage on the road to or from Ham. burgh. The utmost efforts of his understanding had been unable to reach an entire conviction that his late adventure had been a dream. The startling questions of "Who are you? and who am I?" haunted him like spectres, and amongst many singular speculations upon his own origin and identity, he began to indulge a suspicion that he had a double existence, and that he could inhabit two places at once. He now recollected with alarm the many tales he had heard, and once discredited, of men who had two distinct and intelligent existences, who had even beheld their own doubles, and had been warned by those mysterious appearances of their approaching deaths. Fearful of yielding himself too entirely to the dominion of this excitement, he would often rush into the busy streets of Hamburgh, and endeavour to regain, by rough collision with the world and its realities, some portion of common sense and self-possession. But, whenever he approached his lodgings, his visionary fears returned, and he often hesitated to open his door, from an apprehension that he should behold himself seated at the table.

On St. John's day, Arnold returned home from a long ramble, and sat down after dinner in his verandah, which commanded a view of the road and passengers. It was a genuine midsummer-day; the sun was hot

and brilliant, and the dusty road was crowded with vehicles, horses, and pedestrians innumerable. Arnold gazed with envy upon the gay and elegant groups which passed in review before him; and coveted one of the many beautiful horses which pranced under their riders, or, in splendid harness, along the spacious avenue. Passionately fond of riding, he pictured to himself, in glowing colours, the delight of bounding along on a fine English hunter, and of displaying before the admiring eyes of numerous belles his noble and fearless horsemanship. "And might I not have the good fortune," he exclaimed, as he gazed on the ivory Sphinx in his hand, "to meet my lovely countess amidst that crowd of fashionables?" Reclining with his head and arms upon the railing of his verandah, he fell into a profound slumber, from which he was unpleasantly aroused by that ominous question," Arnold! who are you?" Looking up, he saw, in the garden, the ele gant little jockey, whose mysterious recommendation of a stick on the Jungfern-stieg walk had so much perplexed him. The laughing boy stood below the verandah, and, pointing towards Arnold with his right forefinger, repeated the annoying question"Who are you?" Prompted both by anger and curiosity, the student started from his seat, rushed down stairs, and out of the house door, but the boy was gone.

Darting across the garden into the high road, the puzzled youth looked right and left, but in vain; the jockey had disappeared, and Arnold, after some fruitless inquiries amongst the passengers, determined to join the gay throng, and amuse himself as well as he could without a horse. But all his endeavours to reconcile himself to the use of his own legs were ineffectual; and he recollected, with keen regret, those happy days of childhood, when a stick between his legs was as good as an Arabian courser. How pure the delights, how poetical the delusions of childhood!" soliloquized our student, as he paced along. "Would I were but four years old; I should mount this knotted stick, and believe myself on a real horse." Pursuing this train of thought, the visionary Arnold plunged so deeply into the vivid recollections and associations of his childhood, that he at length forgot there was a world without, as well as a world within him, and actually putting the stick between his legs, began to canter away with great speed and spirit along the highway, to the indescribable amusement of the numerous passengers. Shouts of laughter resounded on all sides, but they fell unheeded or unheard upon the ears of Arnold, who pursued his ride with infinite satisfaction, until he beheld, in the distance, an equipage of surpassing splendour leave the avenue, and strike into a cross-road. It was an open English carriage, of rich and elegant design, drawn by four magnificent Danish

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