between four and five hundred times a second.  Now the scientific dissection of such an insect, under the microscope, justifies the opinion that the insect must be conscious of each beat of the wings—­just as a man feels that he lifts his arm or bends his head every time that the action is performed.  A man can not even imagine the consciousness of so short an interval of time as the five-hundredth part of one second.  But insect consciousness can be aware of such intervals; and a single day of life might well appear to the gnat as long as the period of a month to a man.  Indeed, we have reason to suppose that to even the shortest-lived insect life does not appear short at all; and that the ephemeral may actually, so far as felling is concerned, live as long as a man—­although its birth and death does occur between the rising and the setting of the sun.

We might suppose that bees would form a favourite subject of poetry, especially in countries where agriculture is practised upon such a scale as in England.  But such is not really the case.  Nearly every English poet makes some reference to bees, as Tennyson does in the famous couplet—­

  The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
  And murmuring of innumerable bees.

But the only really remarkable poem addressed to a bee is by the American philosopher Emerson.  The poem in question can not be compared as to mere workmanship with some others which I have cited; but as to thinking, it is very interesting, and you must remember that the philosopher who writes poetry should be judged for his thought rather than for the measure of his verse.  The whole is not equally good, nor is it short enough to quote entire; I shall only give the best parts.

  Burly, dozing humble-bee,
  Where thou art is clime for me.

* * * * *

  Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,
  Let me chase thy waving lines;
  Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
  Singing over shrubs and vines.

  Insect lover of the sun,
  Joy of thy dominion! 
  Sailor of the atmosphere;
  Swimmer through the waves of air;
  Voyager of light and noon;
  Epicurean of June;
  Wait, I prithee, till I come
  Within earshot of thy hum,—­
  All without is martyrdom.

* * * * *

  Thou, in sunny solitudes,
  Rover of the underwoods,
  The green silence dost displace
  With thy mellow, breezy bass.

* * * * *

  Aught unsavory or unclean
  Hath my insect never seen;

* * * * *

  Wiser far than human seer,
  Yellow-breeched philosopher! 
  Seeing only what is fair,
  Sipping only what is sweet,
  Thou dost mock at fate and care,
  Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.