HAHDWICKE'S S CIENCE-GOSS IP. 



273 



and in tlic other of six. There may have been a 

 physical reasou for this distinction, so that it is 

 hardly fair to say, because our own reef-buildinj? 

 corals, with a different internal structure, cannot 

 live outside the tropical zones, the extinct fossil 

 forms must have required a warmer climature than 

 our latitudes now afford. The difference in struc- 

 ture may have been connected with colder and more 

 temperate conditions. 



Fig. 178. " Chain Coral " {Ralysites catenulatus). 



Still, the fact that reef-building corals were once 

 abundant in British seas is a novelty. It shows us 

 the presence of physical agencies now absent, whose 



Fig. 179. Fossil Coral [Favosites polymorpha). 



work resulted in the foundation of rock-strata that 

 we are now proud to call part of "Merrie England." 



Fig. 180. Fossil Coral (Stauria astrceformis) . 



The beautiful reddish limestones, of Devonian age, 

 found in South Devonshii-e, are often composed of 



the remains of fossil corals alone. In Derbyshire 

 you see the walls along the roadsides crowded with 

 them. In Flintshire, above all places in Great 

 Britain, you get fossil reef-building corals in the 

 greatest degree of perfection. In fact, no recent 

 forms brought home from tropical shores are more 

 beautifully perfect. The best locality for obtaining 

 these is in the limestone quarries near Mold. About 

 Dudley, at the Wren's Nest, in the Silurian lime- 

 stones, you may see the slabs densely covered with 

 Favosites and other corals, many of them allied to 

 one of the lowest genera of existing corals — Pontes. 

 The study of fossil corals is worth attention, not only 

 on account of their genuine beauty, but also because 

 of the important part they have played in laying the 

 present solid " foundations of the earth." 



J. E. T. 



THE HONEY-BEE. 



YOUR correspondent "J.T. R.," page 143, says, 

 " I should like to inform Mr. Carr, whom I 

 know by report to be an extensive Lancashire bee- 

 master, that queen bees can and will sting human 

 subjects." Now from long experience with hand- 

 ling hundreds of queens, I do not beUeve they have 

 the power to sting a human subject, although 

 they use their stings in combats with a rival 

 queen. I should like to know if " J. T. R." 

 was ever stung with a queen lee, or what 

 evidence he has got for his statement ? 



"A.B." inquires, on page 1S9, "Whether 

 the queen bee is ever impregnated in the 

 hive," and T. 0. Wood, on page 262, answers 

 his inquiries correctly, but says, "Whether 

 the drone dies after impregnation I cannot 

 say." A young queen bee is generally im- 

 pregnated the first fortnight of her life ; but 

 if she does not get impregnated before she is 

 about a month old, she remains] barren all 

 her life, and can only lay unfertilized eggs, 

 that will produce only drones, or male bees. 

 The queen always pairs with the drone in 

 the air, and the act has never yet been seen by 

 mortal eyes. I have frequently seen my queens 

 come out on their matrimonial excursions, and 

 have sat down by the hive and noticed the exact 

 time they have been out on their wedding flight, and I 

 can always tell if one has been successful in meeting 

 with a drone. If the queen returns unirapregnated, 

 she will go out again the next day, if favourable, 

 within a few minutes of the time she was out the day 

 before. One impregnation serves the queen for her 

 life, and fructifies more than half a million of eggs. 

 Many people say, as nothing is made in vain, why 

 are so many hundreds of drones hatched, when only 

 one is required to impregnate each queen? This is 

 a wise provision of nature to insure the queen nearly 



