52 THEODORE H. PRISON. 



overlooked that the vast majority of the colonies discovered in 

 their natural environments are found at a time of the year when 

 little can be learned about many of the aspects of their life 

 history; the starting of the colony, for example. 



Hoffer (1882-1883) says on page eleven of the first part of his 

 celebrated publication that he has never seen how the comb is 

 started and adds that apparently neither has any other observer. 

 In the appendix of the second part of this work, however, Hoffer 

 tells how to his great joy he finally observed the start of the comb 

 of B. lapidarius. In this latter instance the queen was under 

 confinement and the information obtained by Hoffer concerning 

 this phase of the development of the comb was not based on 

 field observations. Westerlund (1898) has given us a short 

 account of a nest in its incipient stages that he found in Finland 

 and v. Buttel-Reepen (1903) gives a few notes on the subject 

 furnished him by Herr Wegener. Since then Wagner (1907), 

 Lindhard (1912), Sladen (1912), Armbruster (1914) and Plath 

 (1923) have added to our knowledge concerning the start of the 

 comb. Sladen and Plath give the best accounts of the start of 

 the nest and comb thus far published. The correctness and 

 completeness of the descriptions of these last mentioned writers 

 are due to the fact that they did not rely upon field observa- 

 tions alone. 



By calling attention to the disadvantages incurred by de- 

 pending upon field nests and the limitations of such studies I 

 do not mean to imply that the examination of such nests is not 

 or has not been of importance. I merely wish to point out that 

 by so doing one is relying to a great extent upon chance and 

 therefore a means which does not guarantee results to one intent 

 upon penetrating deeper into many of the details, characteristics, 

 and mysteries of the life history of the bumblebees. 



In a comparatively recent number of the BIOLOGICAL BULLETIN 

 (1923), Mr. O. E. Plath has published an exceedingly interesting 

 and valuable account of his ',' Breeding Experiments with confined 

 Bremus (Bombus) Queens." In the introductory part of this 

 paper Plath adequately reviews the experiments of Hoffer (1882), 

 Lindhard (1912), Sladen (1912), and Frison (1918) of this nature, 

 and accordingly these papers need not be reviewed again. 



