🚀 go-pugleaf

I pulled out "The Bee on the Comb" and refreshed my memory.

In the first picture, there are two "hybrid" animals, one half-mouse,
half-horse, the other half-cat, half-toad.  If you've read "Masquerade", the
drawings remind you of the circle of animals in one of the pictures in that
book, and there's even a footnote there explaining the names of the animals
in that picture.  Using the same reasoning, the two animals in "The Bee on
the Comb" ought to be called a "morse" and a "coad".  So the obvious
conclusion is that this is a clue indicating that Morse code is involved.

Well, it *is* a clue, but if there's Morse code anywhere in "The Bee on the
Comb", I haven't found it.  The real clue is that it sends you back to
"Masquerade", because the words around that picture read "All animals are
equal in a tale of tail to tail, end to end to end".  The "end to end to
end" line is particularly apt.  I wonder whether Mr. Williams had this
second book in  mind already when he wrote that, or whether he was casting
about for ideas later and tumbled across that line.

Anyway, each picture in "The Bee on the Comb" contains a hidden animal.
Ignore all the naturalistic animals: you're looking just for one animal
hidden in some visually punning way.  For example, in the first picture,
there's a parrot hidden in the young man's vest--turn the page upside down
and the leaves pictured on his vest become the parrot's feathers.

If you write down all fifteen hidden animals and take their last letters,
"end to end to end", it spells out "The Bee on the Comb".  I recall that we
found the hidden animal in the picture on the kitchen (the one with the box
of Oxo cubes on the mantel) particularly difficult to find, though I expect
that'll vary from person to person.  The hidden animals are wonderfully
cleverly hidden.  Oh, and the animal ending in C is rather obscure; I think
we had to figure out its name only after we'd figured out the title of the
book and knew it ended in C.

If you count the number of bees in each picture and convert it to letters,
using A = 1, B = 2, etc., you get "Bees Only Sting".  I sort of remember
there's some clue in the text that this is to be ignored.

Funny thing, I just now noticed for the first time that there is in fact
Morse code around the frame of the gardening picture.  I can't imagine how
we missed it, and yet I have no recollection of ever seeing it or working it
out.  Hmm.

Scott Marley
hudu@well.sf.ca.us