OF WASHINGTON. 19 



Again, July 22d, he remarks: " The small species, M. dorsalis 

 Smith, now has at the entrance of its hive a long, somewhat 

 distorted, cylindrical tube of brown wax, 5 or '6 cm. long and i 

 cm. in diameter, ending outside with a reddish spreading 

 cornet. * * * The workers of the other ^species, 



Melipona scutellaris Latr., have built of brown wax, granular 

 and soft, a sort of a wall which completely closes the large 

 entrance hole which was made in the bottom of the wooden box 

 that serves as their hive. This work must be intended to protect 

 them from the light and to prevent the entrance of insect 

 enemies." * At the meeting of the 9th of December, 1874, Mr. 

 Girard said : " It is seen in the nest of Mclipona scutellaris that 

 a tube of wax starts from the entrance-hole and leads to the 

 brood-nest, so that the insect traverses it in the same manner as 

 the Termites of Landes and Charantes their galleries of sawdust. 

 It is the exterior collar of this tube which I have observed around 

 the flight- hole of the small species in the Jardin*d'Acclimata- 

 tion, M. postica Latr., or dorsalis Smith. It is probable that this 

 tube, which is found in the nests of all species of Melipona and 

 Trigona, serves to shut out all light from the interior and prevents 

 the introduction of insect enemies." f 



It is particularly to the opinion expressed in this last sentence, 

 as well as on one other occasion by Mr. Girard, namely, that 

 these defenses were constructed for Jkc purpose of preventing 

 the entrance of light, that I wish to direct your attention, and 

 also to the statement made in all four quotations, that the mate 

 rial of tJiese entrance-tubes is wax. So far as I am aware, no 

 one has ever called in question the correctness of these observa 

 tions made, as they were, by one of the former presidents of the 

 Entomological Society of France, who has himself written a work 

 on apiculture which professes, as its preface states, " to be a guide 

 both scientific and practical," and "for apiculturists a clear and 

 exact resume of the natural history and of the technical operations 

 connected with the harvesting of the products ; for savants, a com 

 plete monograph from the entomological standpoint." \ 



It is true he does not directly state that the tubes or defenses 

 constructed by Trigona are of the same material as those made 

 by Melipona. but he distinctly states on three different occasions 

 that the entrance barriers of the latter are of wax, and when refer 

 ring to Trigona he fails to note any exception. This, it seems to 

 me, implies that he considers the nature of the material employed 

 in these constructions by each genus the same, as also the purpose 

 they serve. Mr. Drory clearly regarded them as built for protec- 



*/</., p. CXL (Seance du 22 Juillet). 



t M. Girard in Annales de la Societe ent. de France, 1874, p. 568 

 (^Seance du 9 Dec., 1874). 



\ Les Abeilles, Organes et Fonctions, education et produits, miel et cire, 

 par Maurice Girard, Paris, 1878. (See pp. 7-8.) 



