A  swarm  of  bees  and  honey  in  the  oaroase
of  the  lion. — ^This  incident  has  been  questioned,  be-
eanae  it  is  tmly  said  that  bees  hate  all  pntresoence  and
deeompodtion,  and  that  the  notion  of  bees  being  gene-
rated in  the  rotting  bodies  of  oxen  (which  we  find  in
Tirsil,  Qtoraic  ir.,  Ac.)  is  a  Tolgar  error.  Bnt  it  is
orenooked  that  the  word  *'  carcase  "  here  means  (as  the
Syriae  renders  it)  "  skeleton."  The  fierce  sun  of  the
&8t  dries  rx^  all  the  animal  moisture  of  a  dead  body,
and  reduces  it  to  a  skeleton  with  extreme  rapidity,  and
bees  have  no  dislike  to  dried  bones  as  a  place  in  which
to  swarm.  Thus  Herodotus  tells  us  (y.  114)  that  when
the  Amathusians  cut  off  the  head  of  Onesilus,  because
he  besieged  them,  and  hung[  it  oyer  their  gates,  a  swarm
of  bees  filled  the  skull  with  their  combs  and  honey.
Bosenmuller  also  quotes  the  authority  of  the  physician
Aldrorand  for  the  story  that  swarms  of  bees  built  their
eombs  between  the  skeletons  of  two  sisters  who  were
buried  in  the  Ohurch  of  Santa  Croce,  at  Verona,  in  1566.
(Comp.  Plin.  H.  K,  xi.  24;  Varro,  B.  B.,  iii.  16.)

<*)  He  took  thereof  in  his  hands.— Unless  he
eonadered  that  a  skeleton  could  not  be  regarded  as  a
dead  body,  he  could  not  haye  done  this  wiSiout  break-
ing the  express  conditions  of  his  Nazarite  yow  (Num.
T.  6).
