Nature study is an important part of education. Insects seem to the author understressed. In recognition of this need the QueeNdom or the Honey Rees is submitted for schools, for all who live rural lives, and for such as seek relaxation, interest, and inspiration by sojourn in the country for longer or shorter periods.

The honey bee represents the most interesting as well as one of the largest orders of insects. Wasps, ants, bumblebees, and gall-flies are also important members.

An apiary located near blooming trees

The bee is very suitable for type study. Without his sibilant, soothing hum, spring would lose much cheer. He is an integral part of garden, door-lot, road-side, swamp, meadow, field, and forest. Where grass, flowers, and trees are; there the bee, humming, gathers pollen and honey.

In attractive English, free from technicalities, the author, without sacrificing accuracy, has delineated the life history, the structural adaptation, and the wonders, social and economic, of the bee's activities. The story is of general interest because the seeming intelligent life of the honey bee is the prototype of the social and economic security which is the universal objective of nations.

The discussion proceeds in an orderly arrangement setting an example for type study generally. It carries with it strong implications of the aesthetic, ethical, and economic values of an enlarged knowledge of the bee.

I commend the book as a valuable supplementary reader for the fifth and later grades and for the general reader.

A. S. Martin.

Formerly:

Supt. Schools, Norristown, Pa.

County Supt. Schools, Bucks County, Pa. Supt. Schools, Haddonfield, N. J.

Director - Nature Study - Pennsylvania Chautauqua, Mt. Gretna, Pa.

If I could only be a bee,

The flowers would nod and talk with me;

And I would understand the words They speak to butterflies and birds.

My wings would fan the air so fast,

You'd hear a hum when I went past;

And I would see a world of things Unknown to dictators and kings.

Wherever I might chance to roam,

The flowers all would be at home

With welcome on their pretty faces

For one with news from distant places.

If I could only be a bee,

I would not care to go to sea.

I'd be a pirate of the land

Who'd gather pollen gold like sand.

I'd cruise about beneath a sky

In which the June clouds drifted high.

Free as the merry sun above,

I'd laugh through life and laugh with love.

I'd fill my honey sac and strive To be the first back to the hive.

I'd seal my load of gold away To use some bitter winter's day.

But, then at night, when all the stars Like headlights on a million cars, Gleamed high above the dewy grass, I'd count the cooling hours pass

And wish that I was home in bed,

A pillow soft beneath my head, Hearing my mother say to me

"Why do you wish to be a bee? "