Note 1207 — Chapter I · THE VILLA AND THE FARMYARD.

Echo, in the mythology, is said to have been beloved of Pan, by which she seems tacitly to be connected with the generation of Panic Terrors Polyæn. Stratagem. i. 2. 1. Offensive smells are often reckoned among the aversions of bees, but I fear without good reason. At least they have sometimes been found to select strange places wherein to deposit their treasures of sweets. In the book of Judges, chap. xiv. ver. 8, seq., it is related that, when Samson, on his way to Timnath, turned aside to view the carcass of a young lion which he had a short time previously slain, “behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion, and he took thereof in his hands and went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them and they did eat, but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion.” Upon this passage the following may serve as a note:—“Among this pretty collection of natural curiosities, (in the cemetery of Algesiras,) one in particular attracted our attention; this was the contents of a small uncovered coffin in which lay a child, the cavity of the chest exposed and tenanted by an industrious colony of bees. The comb was rapidly progressing, and I suppose, according to the adage of the poet, they were adding sweets to the sweet, if not perfume to the violet.” Napier, Excursions on the Shores of the Mediterranean, v. i. 127.