Speech of James Otis In 1765

 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 1776

 

 Speech of James Otis in 1765

        England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the steps of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland. Arbitrary principles, like those against which we now contend, have cost one king of England his life, another his crown, and they may yet cost a third his most flourishing colonies.
       We are two millions, one-fifth fighting-men. We are bold and vigorous, and we call no man master. To the nation from whom we are proud to derive our origin we ever were, and we ever will be, ready to yield unforced assistance; but it must not, and it never can be extorted.
       Some have sneeringly asked. Are the Americans too poor to pay a few pounds on stamped paper? No! America, thanks to God and herself, is rich. But the right to take ten pounds implies the right to take a thousand; and what must be the wealth that avarice, aided by power, cannot exhaust? True, the specter is now small; but the shadow he casts before him is huge enough to darken all this fair land.
       Others, in sentimental style, talk of the immense debt of gratitude which we owe to England. And what is the amount of this debt? Why, truly, it is the same that the young lion owes to the dam which has brought it forth on the solitude of the mountain, or left it amid the winds and storms of the desert.
       We plunged into the wave, with the great charter of freedom in our teeth, because the fagot and torch were behind us. We have waked this new world from its savage lethargy; forests have been prostrated in our path; towns and cities have grown up suddenly as the flowers of the tropics; and the fires in our autumnal woods are scarcely more rapid than the increase of our wealth and population.
       And do we owe all this to the kind succor of the mother-country? No; we owe it to the tyranny that drove us from her; to the pelting storms which invigorated our helpless infancy!
       But perhaps others will say, We ask no money from your gratitude; we only demand that you should pay your own expenses. And who, I pray, is to judge of their necessity? Why, the king! (And, with all due reverence to his sacred majesty, he understands the real wants of his distant subjects as little as he does the language of the Choctaws.) Who is to judge concerning the frequency of these demands? The ministry. Who is to judge whether the money is properly expended? The cabinet behind the throne.
       In every instance, those who take are to judge for those who pay. If this system is suffered to go into operation, we shall have reason to esteem it a great privilege that rain and dew do not depend upon Parliament; otherwise, they would soon be taxed and dried.
       But, thanks to God! There is freedom enough left upon earth to resist such monstrous injustice. The flame of liberty is extinguished in Greece and Rome, but the light of its glowing embers is still bright and strong on the shores of America. Actuated by its sacred influence, we will resist unto death.
       But we will not countenance anarchy and misrule. The wrongs that a desperate community have heaped upon their enemies shall be amply and speedily repaired. Still, it is lighted in these colonies which one breath of their king may kindle into such fury that the blood of all England cannot extinguish it.

• Who Was James Otis?
• The Collected Political Writings of James Otis

America Resents British Dictation

"Nor shall their story be forgot...

 AMERICA RESENTS BRITISH DICTATION
By Henry H. Carrington

       During the agitation of 1765, concerning the British Stamp Act, a convention of its opponents was assembled in New York City under the name of "The Stamp Act Congress." Among the most conspicuous of the delegates from the Massachusetts Colony was James Otis. As early as 1761 he protested so earnestly against permitting the British officers of the customs to have "writs of assistance" in their enforcement of the British revenue laws, that John Adams, who listened to his argument, thus described it:

"Otis was a flame of fire! With a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eye into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him. Every man of an immense audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take up arms against any 'writs of assistance.'"

       The all-absorbing sentiment of his life, the wealth of his diction, and the fire of his oratory have been embodied in a form which stands among the best of American classics. In the romance of "The Rebels," Miss Lydia Maria Francis (afterwards Mrs. Child) introduces James Otis as a leading character. After the opening statement, that there was hurrying to and fro through the streets of Boston on the night of the 14th of August, 1765,'' his patriotic American woman shows such a right conception of the power and oratory of Otis, as well as of the actual tone and spirit of his times, that the fragments of her hero's conversation during the story, gathered in the form of a speech, have often been mistaken for some actual appeal to the people of his period. The youth of America will do well to keep it fresh in mind, and thereby honor both its author and its subject.

The Fourth Of July in Westminster Abbey

THE FOURTH OF JULY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
By Phillips Brooks, July 4, 1880

       To all true men the birthday of a nation must always be a sacred thing. For in our modern thought the nation is the making-place of man. Not by the traditions of its history, nor by the splendor of its corporate achievements, nor by the abstract excellence of its Constitution, but by its fitness to make men, to beget and educate human character, to contribute to the complete humanity the perfect man that is to be, - by this alone each nation must be judged today. The nations are the golden candlesticks which hold aloft the glory of the Lord. No candlestick can be so rich or venerable that men shall honor it if it hold no candle. "Show us your man," land cried to land.
       It is not for me to glorify tonight the country which I love with all my heart and soul. I may not ask your praise for anything admirable which the United States has been or done. But on my country's birthday I may do something far more solemn and more worthy of the hour. I may ask for your prayers in her behalf: that on the manifold and wrondrous chance which God is giving her, - on her freedom (for she is free, since the old stain of slavery was washed out in blood); on her unconstrained religious life; on her passion for education and her eager search for truth; on her zealous care for the poor man's rights and opportunities; on her quiet homes where the future generations of men are growing; on her manufactories and her commerce; on her wide gates open to the east and to the west; on her strange meeting of the races out of which a new race is slowly being born; on her vast enterprise and her illimitable hopefulness, - on all these materials and machineries of manhood, on all that the life of my country must mean for humanity, I may ask you to pray that the blessing of God, the Father of man, and Christ, the Son of man, may. rest forever.

• American bishop Phillips Brooks 
• Phillips Brooks an American clergyman
• What So Proudly We Hail

Crises Of Nations

"How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest."

       "There are brief crises in which the drift of individual and national history is determined, sometimes unexpectedly; critical moments on which great decisions hang; days which, like a mountain in a plain, lift themselves above the dead level of common days into everlasting eminence. Our Day of Independence was such a day; so was the day of Marathon, and the day of Waterloo. Napoleon admitted that the Austrians fought grandly on the field of Rivoli, and said, They failed because they do not understand the value of minutes" Humboldt refers the discovery of America to a wonderful concatenation of trivial circumstances," including a flight of parrots." Dr. Foss

America's Natal Day

The Declaration of Independence: The Vision of a Free Society from the Jack Miller Center

 "The United States is the only country with a known birthday. All the rest began, they know not when, and grew into power, they know not how. If there had been no Independence Day, England and America combined would not be so great as each actually is. There is no "Republican," no "Democrat," on the Fourth of July, - all are Americans. All feel that their country is greater than party." James Gillespie Blaine

Our National Anniversary

OUR NATIONAL ANNIVERSARY BY A. H. RICE

       We celebrate to-day no idle tradition - the deeds of no fabulous race; for we tread in the scarcely obliterated footsteps of an earnest and valiant generation of men, who dared to stake life, and fortune, and sacred honor, upon a declaration of rights, whose promulgation shook tyrants on their thrones, gave hope to fainting freedom, and reformed the political ethics of the world.
       The greatest heroes of former days have sought renown in schemes of conquest, based on the love of dominion or the thirst for war; and such had been the worship of power in the minds of men, that adulation had ever followed in the wake of victory. How daring then the trial of an issue between a handful of oppressed and outlawed colonists, basing their cause, under God, upon an appeal to the justice of mankind and their own few valiant arms. And how immeasurably great was he, the fearless commander, who, after the fortunes and triumph of battle were over, scorned the thought of a regal throne in the hearts of his countrymen. Amidst the rejoicings of this day, let us mingle something of ' gratitude with our joy - something of reverence with our gratitude - and something of duty with our reverence.
       Let us cultivate personal independence in the spirit of loyalty to the State, and may God grant that we may always be able to maintain the sovereignty of the State in the spirit of integrity to the Union.
       Whatever shall be the fate of other governments, ours thus sustained, shall stand forever. As has been elsewhere said, nation after nation may rise and fall, kingdoms and empires crumble into ruin, but our own native land, gathering energy and strength from the lapse of time, shall go on and still go on its destined way to greatness and renown. And when thrones shall crumble into dust, when scepters and diadems shall have been forgotten, till heaven's last thunder shall shake the world below, the flag of the Republic shall still wave on, and its Stars, its Stripes, and its Eagle, shall still float in pride, and strength, and glory. 

"Whilst the earth bears a plant.
Or the sea rolls a wave."

Address of John Lathrop, 1796

"Let Independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost."

ADDRESS OF JOHN LATHROP (JULY 4 , 1796, Boston.)

       In the war for independence America had but one object in view, for in independence are concentrated and condensed every blessing that makes life desirable, every right and privilege which can tend to the happiness, or secure the native dignity, of man. In the attainment of independence were all their passions, their desires, and their powers engaged. The intrepidity and magnanimity of their armies, the wisdom and inflexible firmness of their Congress, the ardency of their patriotism, their unrepining patience when assailed by dangers and perplexed with aggravated misfortune, have long and deservedly employed the pen of panegyric and the tongue of oratory.
       Through the whole Revolutionary conflict a consistency and systematic regularity were preserved, equally honorable as extraordinary. The unity of design and classically correct arrangement of the series of incidents which completed the epic story of American independence, were so wonderful, so well wrought, that political Hypercriticism was abashed at the mighty production, and forced to join her sister, Envy, in applauding the glorious composition.
        On the last page of Fatehs eventful volume, with the raptured ken of prophecy, I behold Columbia's name recorded, her future honors and happiness inscribed. In the same important book, the approaching end of tyranny and the triumph of right and justice are written, in indelible characters. The struggle will soon be over; the tottering thrones of despots will quickly fall, and bury their proud incumbents in their massy ruins. Extract.

• Who Was John Lathrop?
• American Antiquarian Society

Address of John Quincy Adams, 1793

Old Glory in the Sky.

ADDRESS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (July 4, I793, Boston.)

       Americans! let us pause for a moment to consider the situation of our country at that eventful day when our national existence commenced. In the full possession and enjoyment of all those prerogatives for which you then dared to adventure upon ''all the varieties of untried being," the calm and settled moderation of the mind is scarcely competent to conceive the tone of heroism to which the souls of free-men were exalted in that hour of perilous magnanimity.
       Seventeen times has the sun, in the progress of his annual revolution, diffused his prolific radiance over the plains of independent America. Millions of hearts, which then palpitated with the rapturous glow of patriotism, have already been translated to brighter worlds; to the abodes of more than mortal freedom.
       Other millions have arisen, to receive from their parents and benefactors an inestimable recompense of their achievements.
       A large proportion of the audience, whose benevolence is at this moment listening to the speaker of the day, like him, were at that period too little advanced beyond the threshold of life to partake of the divine enthusiasm which inspired the American bosom: which prompted her voice to proclaim defiance to the thunders of Britain; which consecrated the banners of her armies ; and finally erected the holy temple of American Liberty over the tomb of departed tyranny.
       It is from those who have already passed the meridian of life; it is from you, ye venerable assertors of the rights of mankind, that we are to be informed what were the feelings which swayed within your breasts and impelled you to action; when, like the stripling of Israel, with scarcely a weapon to attack, and without a shield for your defense, you met and, undismayed, engaged with the gigantic greatness of the British power.
       Untutored in the disgraceful science of human butchery; destitute of the fatal materials which the ingenuity of man has combined to sharpen the scythe of death; unsupported by the arm of any friendly alliance, and unfortified against the powerful assaults of an unrelenting enemy, you did not hesitate at that moment, when your coasts were infested by a formidable fleet, when your territories were invaded by a numerous and veteran army, to pronounce the sentence of eternal separation from Britain, and to throw the gauntlet at a power, the terror of whose recent triumphs was almost coextensive with the earth.
       The interested and selfish propensities which, in times of prosperous tranquillity, have such powerful dominion over the heart, were all expelled, and in their stead the public virtues, the spirit of personal devotion to the common cause, a contempt of every danger, in comparison with the subserviency of the country, had assumed an unlimited control.
       The passion for the public had absorbed all the rest, as the glorious luminary of heaven extinguishes, in a flood of refulgence, the twinkling splendor of every inferior planet. Those of you, my countrymen, who were actors in those interesting scenes will best know how feeble and impotent is the language of this description, to express the impassioned emotions of the soul with which you were then agitated.
       Yet it were injustice to conclude from thence, or from the greater prevalence of private and personal motives in these days of calm serenity, that your sons have degenerated from the virtues of their fathers. Let it rather be a subject of pleasing reflection to you than the generous and disinterested energies which you were summoned to display, are permitted, by the bountiful indulgence of heaven, to remain latent in the bosoms of your children.
       From the present prosperous appearance of our public affairs, we may admit a rational hope that our country will have no occasion to require of us those extraordinary and heroic exertions, which it was your fortune to exhibit.
       But from the common versatility of all human destiny, should the prospect hereafter darken, and the clouds of public misfortune thicken to a tempest; should the voice of our country's calamity ever call us to her relief, we swear, by the precious memory of the sages who toiled and of the heroes who bled in her defense, that we will prove ourselves not unworthy of the prize which they so dearly purchased; that we will act as the faithful disciples of those who so magnanimously taught us the instructive lesson of republican virtue.

Address of Joel Barlow, 1787

Glorious Fourth postcard

 ADDRESS OF JOEL BARLOW (July 4, I787, Hartford, Conn.)

       On the anniversary of so great an event as the birth of the empire in which we live, none will question the propriety of passing a few moments in contemplating the various objects suggested to the mind by the important occasion ; and while the nourishment, the growth, and even the existence of our empire depend upon the united efforts of an extensive and divided people, the duties of this day ascend from amusement and congratulation to a serious patriotic employment.
        We are assembled, not to boast, but to realize, not to inflate our national vanity by a pompous relation of past achievements in the council or the field, but, from a modest retrospect of the truly dignified part already acted by our countrymen, from an accurate view of our present situation, and from an anticipation of the scenes that remain to be unfolded, to discern and familiarize the duties that still await us as citizens, as soldiers, and as men.
       Revolutions in other countries have been affected by accident. The faculties of human reason and the rights of human nature have been the sport of chance and the prey of ambition. When indignation has burst the bands of slavery, to the destruction of one tyrant, it was only to impose the manacles of another. This arose from the imperfection of that early stage of society, the foundations of empires being laid in ignorance, with a total inability of foreseeing the improvements of civilization, or of adapting government to a state of social refinement. On the western continent a new task, totally unknown to the legislators of other nations, was imposed upon the fathers of the American empire. Here was a people, lords of the soil on which they trod, commanding a prodigious length of coast, and an equal breadth of frontier, a people habituated to liberty, professing a mild and benevolent religion, and highly advanced in science and civilization. To conduct such a people in a revolution, the address must be made to reason, as well as the passions.
       In what other age or nation has a people, at ease upon their own farms, secure and distant from the approach of fleets and armies, tide-waiters and stamp-masters, reasoned, before they had felt, and, from the dictates of duty and conscience, encountered dangers, distress, and poverty, for the sake of securing to posterity a government of independence and peace? Here was no Cromwell to inflame the people with bigotry and zeal; no Caesar to reward his followers with the spoils of vanquished foes; and no territory to be acquired by conquest. Ambition, superstition, and avarice, those universal torches of war, never illumined an American field of battle. But the permanent principles of sober policy spread through the colonies, roused the people to assert their rights, and conducted the revolution. Those principles were noble, as they were new and unprecedented in the history of human nations. The majority of a great people, on a subject which they understand, will never act wrong.
       Our duty calls us to act worthy of the age and the country that gave us birth. Every possible encouragement for great and generous exertions is presented before us. The natural resources are inconceivably various and great The enterprising genius of the people promises a most rapid improvement in all the arts that embellish human nature. The blessings of a rational government will invite emigrations from the rest of the world and fill the empire with the worthiest and happiest of mankind; while the example of political wisdom and sagacity, here to be displayed, will excite emulation through the kingdoms of the earth, and meliorate the condition of the human race.

• Who was Joel Barlow?
• The Vision of Columbus (pdf.)

England And The Fourth of July

 ENGLAND AND THE FOURTH OF JULY
BY W, T. STEAD
(From The Independent.)

       I wish with all my heart that we could adopt the Fourth of July as the Festival Day of the whole  English-speaking race. If this suggestion should seem strange to Americans, it is not unfamiliar to many  Englishmen. We consider that the triumph of the American revolt against George III was a vindication of the essentially English idea of democratic self-government, and we believe that we have benefited by it almost as much as the Americans. It taught us a lesson which made the British Colonial Empire a possibility, and if we are now involved in a suicidal war in South Africa, it is largely because our Government has forgotten the principles of George Washington, and has gone back to the principles of George III.
       For some years past I have presided at a distinctly British celebration of the Fourth of July at my brother's settlement in Southeast London, at Browning Hall, and I have always repudiated the idea that Americans should be allowed to monopolize the Fourth of July. It is one of the great days of the English-speaking race in the celebration of which all members of the English-speaking nations should participate.

The 4th of July or Independence Day Index

A young American from the turn
of the 20th Century.

       Independence Day is the national holiday most dear to the hearts of the American people. It commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776. On the fourth of each July this great event is celebrated throughout the Union with patriotic exercises of varied nature and noisy demonstrations, in which firecrackers and other explosives have a prominent part.

• Search the Index for President's Day Artifacts
• 4rth of July Coloring Pages at Crayon Palace: American Patriot Coloring Pages

The Celebration of American Independence:

1. The Great American Holiday
2. The Nation's Birthday by Mary E. Vandyne  
3. How The Fourth of July Should Be Celebrated by Julia Ward Howe 

The Spirit and Significance of July 4th:

1. England and America by James Bryce 
2. The Birthday of the Nation by Daniel Webster
3. The Fourth of July by Charles Leonard Moore
4. Lift Up Your Hearts
5. England and the Fourth of July by W. T. Stead 
6. Address of Joel Barlow, 1787
   
7. Address of John Quincy Adams, 1793
8. Address of John Lathrop, 1796, Extract
   
9. The Fourth of July by Charles Sprague
10. Our National Anniversary by H. Rice
11. America's Natal Day by James Gillespie Blaine
12. Crises of Nations by Dr. Foss
13. The Fourth of July in Westminster Abbey by Phillips Brooks
14. Patriot Sons by Samuel F. Smith 
15. The Flag Day Poem by Lydia Coonley Ward
    

Before The Dawn of Independence:

1. America Resents British Dictation by Henry B. Carrington
2. Speech of James Otis 
3. Independence a Solemn Duty 
4. An Appeal for America by William Pitt 
5. Conciliation or War
6. "War is Actually Begun" by Patrick Henry 
7. Emancipation from British Dependence by Philip Freneau 
8. True Heroism 
   

The Declaration of Independence:

1. The Origin of the Declaration by Sydney George Fisher 
2. The Declaration of Independence by John D. Long
3. The Signing of the Declaration by George Lippard 
4. Supposed Speech of John Adams by Daniel Webster 
5. The Liberty Bell by J T. Headley
6. Independence Bell, Philadelphia
7. The Declaration of Independence
8. Independence Explained by Samuel Adams
9. The Dignity of Our Nation's Founders by William T, Evarts
10. The Character of the Declaration of Independence by George Bancroft 
11. The Declaration of Independence by Henry T. Randall 
12. The Declaration of Independence by John Quincy Adams 
13. The Declaration of Independence by Tudor Jenks 
14. The Declaration of Independence in the Light of Modern Criticism by Moses Coit Tyler

The Struggle for Independence:

1. The Principles of the Revolution
2. The Song of the Cannon by Sam Walter Foss
3. Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
4. Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. A Song for Lexington by Robert Kelly Weeks 
6. The Revolutionary Alarm by George Bancroft 
7. The Volunteer by Eldridge Jefferson Cutler 
8. Ticonderoga by V, B. Wilson 
9. Warren's Address by John Pierpont 
10. "The Lonely Bugle Grieves" by Grenville Mellen
11. The Battle of Bunker Hill
12. The Maryland Battalion by John Williamson Palmer
13. The Battle of Trenton
14. Columbia  by Timothy Dwight
15. The Fighting Parson by Henry Ames Blood 
16. The Saratoga Lesson by George William Curtis 
17. The Surrender of Burgoyne by James Watts De Peyster 
18. The Saratoga Monument Begun by Horatio Seymour 
19. Molly Maguire at Monmouth by William Collins 
20. The South in the Revolution by Robert Young Hayne 
21. The Song of Marion's Men by William Cullen Bryant 
22. Our Country Saved by James Russell Lowell 
23. New England and Virginia by Robert Charles Winthrop

Sweet Land of Liberty:

1. America by S, F. Smith
2. The Republic by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
3. The Antiquity of Freedom by William Cullen Bryant
4. America by William Cullen Bryant
5. Ode by Ralph Waldo Emerson
6. America First 
7. Liberty for All by William Lloyd Garrison 
8. Hymn
9. The Dawning Future by William Preston Johnson
10. Liberty
11. Freedom
12. A Rhapsody by Cassius Marcellus Clay
13. Columbia by Frederick Lawrence Knowles 
14. A Renaissance of Patriotism by George I, Manson
15. Centennial Poems by John Greenleaf Whittier
16. Welcome to the Nation by Oliver Wendell Holmes 
17. Liberty's Latest Daughter by Bayard Tayhir
18. "Scum of the Earth" by Robert Haven Schauffler
19. Liberty and Union One and Inseparable by Daniel Webster
20. Address to Liberty by William Cowper 
21. The Torch of Liberty by Thomas Moore 
22. Horologue of Liberty 
23. The American Republic by George Bancroft 
24. A New National Hymn by Francis Marion Crawford  
25. "Dear Old Uncle Sam"  
26. Under The Washington Elm, Cambridge

Fictional Stories:

• Jim's Aunt Frances by Bent Dillingham

The New Fourth of July:

1. Our Barbarous Fourth by Mrs, Isaac L. Rice
2. A Safe and Sane Fourth of July by Henry Litchdeld West 
3. The New Independence Day by Henry B. F. MacFarland and Richard B. Waltrous
4. New Fourths for Old by Mrs. Isaac L. Rice
5. Americanizing the Fourth by Robert Haven Schauffler 
6. The Fourth of July by Aunt Fanny 
7. His Wish
   
8. The Feathered Patriot

Patriotic Puzzles for Kids:

• Find Columbia Puzzle

Bee

      The bee a common insect of which the honeybee and bumblebee are the best known species. There are probably not less than 5,000 species scattered over all parts of the world, but they are especially numerous in the tropics. Bees naturally divide themselves into two classes: solitary bees, which live in pairs, and those which live in colonies or societies. The carpenter bee and mason bee are good representatives of the first class.

6 Important Facts About The Honeybee:

1. The honeybee has always been regarded as the most intelligent of insects, and it has been partially domesticated from the earliest times.
2. Honeybees live in large colonies or societies, numbering from 10,000 to 60,000 individuals.
3. In bee culture such a colony is known as a swarm.
4. In every swarm there are three kinds of bees: the queen, which is the female bee that lays the eggs from which the colony is born; the males or drones, so called because of the low humming sound which they make, and the workers, which are by far the largest number.
5. There is only one queen to a swarm.
6. The males may number several hundred, but at a certain season every year most of these are stung to death by the workers, who with the queen are provided with stings.

       It is upon leaf-cutting bees, the workers, that the real strength of the swarm depends. They are the smallest, strongest and most active of the three classes. The queen during the season may lay as many as 300 eggs in a single day, but in cold weather, the number is much less. From the eggs first laid come the workers, and from the later ones, drones. The eggs are deposited in cells prepared by the workers, one to each cell. One set of cells is constructed for workers and another for drones and the queen never makes a mistake in depositing the eggs. The eggs which are to develop into queens are laid in cells much larger than the others, but they will not differ from those laid in the other cells, and the queen is developed by feeding the larva on a special food.

       The eggs are about one-twelfth of an inch long, of a bluish color and oblong in shape. They hatch in about three days. The larvae are fed by the workers for about five days, the food consisting of honey and pollen, called beebread. When the larva has grown so as to fill the cell, the workers seal it up and leave it for about two weeks, when the bee comes forth in the adult state. As the swarm becomes too large for the home in which it lives, a new queen is allowed to appear, and in a short time after this, on a bright, warm day, the old queen leaves the hive with a large portion of the swarm and seeks a new home for herself or enters one that the bees have found beforehand. In one season as many as three successive swarms may leave the same colony. During the winter the bees remain asleep, move about but little and eat little food.

       Bees obtain their food by entering flowers and sucking up and swallowing the nectar, which is stored in the stomach-like honey bag. The hind legs are also provided with little cavities, called baskets, in which the bees store pollen for transit to the home. The bee, after gathering what pollen and honey it can carry, rises into the air, flies in a circle for a few times around, then, having found its bearings, flies home in a perfectly straight line; hence the expression bee line. Bee hunters take advantage of this habit to locate swarms and stores of honey.

       On entering and leaving the flowers, bees get dusted with pollen, and as it is their habit to work but one species of flower at a time, they are important agents in the cross- fertilization of flowers; in fact, such plants as clover cannot be successfully grown with- out the aid of bees.

       Bees are liable to be destroyed by the larvae of a moth which enters the hives at night and lays its eggs. The larvae bun-ow out through the cells and sometime kill an entire swarm. Occasionally in winter mice find their way into the hives and feed upon the bees and honey. Lice and several species of flies and birds also destroy bees.

Leaf cutter bee video by ResonatingBodies