286 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [Dec., '19 



The Bees of the Rocky Mountain National Park 



(Hymenop.). 



By T. D. A. COCKEREI.L, Boulder, Colorado. 

 A large area in the most beautiful and interesting part of 

 the Colorado Rocky Mountains has recently been set aside as 

 a National Park. To this playground come many thousands 

 of people every summer to enjoy the relatively cool climate, 

 the mountain scenery, the plant and animal life. Mr. Enos 

 Mills, of Longs Peak Inn, has .written a number of excellent 

 popular books, describing the country and giving his observa- 

 tions on the habits of bears, beavers and other animals. He 

 has tried for many years to stimulate an intelligent interest 

 in nature, while at the same time curbing that spirit of de- 

 struction which leads people to shoot the animals and pull up 

 plants in a wholesale and reckless manner. Occasionally 

 someone breaks the rules, but on ihe whole the behavior of 

 visitors to the Park, at least in the vicinity of Longs Peak- 

 Inn, is excellent. The multitude, coming primarily for rest 

 and recreation, finds itself in a new kind of school, where 

 fresh impressions and ideas are received every hour. One 

 must be extraordinarily dull not to return from such a holi- 

 day with new intellectual interests as well as increased physi- 

 cal vigor. The Park is new, and awaits development in vari- 

 ous directions. One of the principal items on the program 

 should be a Natural History Survev. The intensive and sci- 

 entific study of such an area would produce results of the 

 greatest interest to all biologists, and would make possible 

 many interpretations of natural phenomena instructive to ordi- 

 nary non-scientific visitors. The indiscriminate collecting of 

 specimens should not be encouraged, but materials must be 

 gathered in a systematic manner to determine the character 

 and distribution of the biota. We should have a committee 

 or commission to carry on the undertaking after the manner 

 of the Clare Island Survey, the results of which have been 

 published by the Royal Irish Academy. Following the tech- 

 nical investigations, the general results and more interesting 



