218 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [September, 



was suggested. Five were successively caught, and each allowed 

 to insert its sting twice along the course of the tendon and nerve, 

 as well also as a black hornet ( Vespa maculata). The sting ol 

 the Polistes is very long and slender, and the wound quite pain- 

 ful; that of the Vespa, while much coarser and shorter, causes 

 less pain. The stinging was followed by some tumefaction and 

 an unpleasant, numb sensation, which lasted several hours; when 

 these ceased all pain from the arm was gone and did not return. 

 While stinging may be a paliative in some of the chronic forms 

 of rheumatism, from the nature of that disease, of itself, it could 

 not possibly effect a cure. Enough of authentic examples, how- 

 ever, exist showing that it may be employed with advantage in 

 certain neuralgic affections (the rheumatism of the unprofessional) 

 and in traumatic injuries of the nerves and muscles. So far as 

 known, no unpleasant sequences have ever occurred irom the 

 stings of Hymenoptera in any part of the body supplied by 

 nerves originating in the spinal cord; but in stinging about the 

 face and head which are supplied by nerves proceeding from the 

 brain itself great care should be taken to avoid wounding these 

 nerves, otherwise a fatality might occur, as cases are on record 

 similar to the one which follows, witnessed by the writer: While 

 watching the hiving of a swarm of bees in a lawn in a country 

 village, the owner, an oldish gentleman, was seen to suddenly 

 fall; reaching his side in an instant, he was found to be almost 

 pulseless and scarcely breathing; artificial respiration was insti- 

 tuted by an assistant, and soon medicinal remedies were at hand, 

 camphor, ammonia, etc., and a teaspoonful of compound spirits 

 of aether administered; in the space of half an hour heart action 

 and respiration were sufficiently re-established. The sting, which 

 remained in the puncture, had penetrated the supra-orbital nerve 

 a little above where it leaves the orbit. Should any one be in- 

 duced to try enkentric treatment, this danger in applications 

 about the head should not be overlooked. 



Carpenter Bees. It may not be so well known to entomolo- 

 gists as to country boys, that bees which alight on timothy stalks 

 and ripening grain are drones and may be handled with impunity. 

 Acting on this knowledge, one day last Summer, the writer 

 picked a bumble-bee from a grass stalk and proceeded to ex- 

 amine it for Stylops; suddenly he concluded that ho had met with 

 an exception to the rule about drones and timothy stalks, having 



