INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 165 



into his hives and those of his vicinity, and had robbed 

 them of their honey. In Africa we are told it has the 

 same propensity; which the Hottentots observing, in 

 order to monopolize the honey of the wild bees, have 

 persuaded the colonists that it inflicts a mortal wound ^. 

 This moth has the faculty of emitting a remarkable 

 sound, which he supposes may produce an effect upon 

 the bees of a hive somewhat similar to that caused by 

 the voice of their queen, which as soon as uttered strikes 

 them motionless, and thus it may be enabled to commit 

 with impunity such devastation in the midst of myriads 

 of armed bands''. The larvae of two species of moth 

 [Galleria Cerecma, and Mcllonella) exhibit equal hardi- 

 hood with equal impunity. They indeed pass the whole 

 of their initiatory state in the midst of the combs. Yet 

 in spite of the stings of the bees of a whole republic, 

 they continue their depredations unmolested, sheltering 

 themselves in tubes made of grains of wax, and lined 

 with silken tapestry, spun and wove by themselves, which 

 the bees (however disposed they may be to revenge the 

 mischief which they do them, by devouring, what to all 

 other animals would be indigestible, their wax,) are un- 

 able to penetrate. These larvae are sometimes so nu- 

 merous in a hive, and commit such extensive ravages, 

 as to force the poor bees to desert it and seek another 

 habitation. 



I shall not delay you longer upon this subject by de- 

 tailing what wild animals suffer from insects, further than 

 by observing that the two creatures of this description in 

 which we are rather interested, the hare and the rahhit^ 



* Quoted from Campbell's Travels in South Africa, in the Quar- 

 terly Review for July 1815. 315. •> Huber. Pref. xi-xiii. 



