160 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



poultry yard. Warm afternoons in July and August, when the drone bees 

 are out, we have seen the martins come down within ten feet of the hive 

 and snap up the drone bees, thus relieving the workers from the necessity 

 of expelling them from the hive and biting off their wings to prevent them 

 from getting back to the hive. The king-bird also, we find, selects the 

 drone, and will come afternoons and take his position on a stake in front 

 of the hive, and when a drone bee comes along will make a rush for him, 

 come back to the stake, give him a pick or two and swallow him. But 

 says an objector, " What do they subsist on before the drone bees fly 

 out ? " This point I settled by shooting one in the month of May, and 

 I found in his crop the wings and legs of May-bugs. By watching their 

 movements, I find the dragon-fly is also a favorite food for them. — J. L. 

 Hersey, Ainerica?i Bee Journal. 



Agricultural Ants. — Mr. Moggridge has observed at Menton,, 

 France, two species of ants (Aphenogaster) carrying into their nests, during 

 the winter months, the seeds of certain late fruiting plants. He has traced 

 their burrows to a spherical chamber filled with the seed of a grass which 

 he had seen the ants in the act of transporting. " Outside the channels 

 there was generally a heap of the husks of the various seeds, and some- 

 times one of those heaps would fill a quart measure. These husks had 

 had their farinaceous contents extracted through a hole in one side. He 

 purposely strewed near the nests large quantities of millet and hemp 

 seeds. After the lapse of a fortnight many of these seeds, previously 

 conveyed into the nests, had been brought out again, they having evidently 

 commenced to germinate, and he then found that the radicle was gnawed 

 off from each seed, so as to prevent further growth, and, this being 

 effected, the seeds were carried back again. The cotyledons of germinated 

 seeds were removed from the nest." — Trans. Entomological Society of 

 London, iSyi. 



ADVERTISEMENTS. 



Exchange. — I am desirous to exchange English for Canadian or 

 American Lepidoptera. J. C. Wasserman, Beverly Terrace, Cullercoats, 

 North Shields, England. 



Coleoptera for Sale. — A number of Rocky Mountain Coleoptera 

 will soon be for sale in sets by John Akhurst, 19, Prospect Street, 

 Brooklyn, N. Y. 



