by bees, many hives of which the inhabitants had stationed on the ruins. The Janissaries, although the bravest soldiers in the Ottoman empire, durst not encounter this formidable line of defence, and refused to advance. "Our bees," says M. Feburier, in remarking on these anecdotes, "are not so terrible. Still, if we place ourselves within a few feet of a hive to examine them, and do not carefully avoid all hasty movements, we shall very soon perceive one or two bees wheeling rapidly round us, with a shrill and piercing sound, very different from their ordinary humming. In this case it will be prudent to take ourselves off, or plunge the head into a bush, because the number of the assailants will increase rapidly, and the attack commence without a moment's delay. If, notwithstanding the shelter of the bush, they continue their enraged buzzing around us, it will be most prudent to get quietly and quickly out of the way."
The following anecdote from Lesser, quoted by Kirkby and Spence, will shew that even in the temperate climate of Europe, the irritability of this insect may be made a formidable means of defence. "During the confusion occasioned by a time of war in 1525, a mob of peasants assembling in Hohnstein in Thuringia, attempted to pillage the house of the minister of Elende, who having in vain employed all his eloquence to dissuade them from their design, ordered his domestics to fetch his bee-hives, and throw them in the middle of this furious mob. The effect was what might be expected; they were immediately put to flight, and happy to escape unstung."
