Shortly afterward his attention was attracted to a crowd of angry bees that were flying excitedly about his head, when he discovered that he was sitting upon their hive, which was found to contain more than 200 pounds of honey.

Out in the broad, swampy delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, the little wanderers have been known to build their combs in a bunch of rushes, or stiff, wiry grass, only slightly protected from the weather, and in danger every spring of being carried away by floods.

They have the advantage, however, of a vast extent of fresh pasture, accessible only to themselves.
The present condition of the Grand Central Garden is very different from that we have sketched.

About twenty years ago, when the gold placers had been pretty thoroughly exhausted, the attention of fortune-seekers--not home-seekers--was, in great part, turned away from the mines to the fertile plains, and many began experiments in a kind of restless, wild agriculture.

A load of lumber would be hauled to some spot on the free wilderness, where water could be easily found, and a rude box-cabin built.