Mosquito-Bees. 



i8r 



pots ; and the entrance is guarded by a line of bees who are jealous in the discharge 

 of their duties. INIany of man's inventions have been shown to have been anticipated 

 bv nature ; and we may see in the behaviour of these sentinels the first idea of the 

 rack, though the religious inventors of that instrument of torture are not likely 

 to have been inspired by watching the karbi. It is said that when an intruder 

 alights at the entrance, he is at once seized by the guard, who grip his limbs in their 

 jaws, and all stretch them out to their full extent, and keep them so extended for 

 an hour, by which 

 time the prisoner is 

 dead, probably fr(jm the 

 exhaustion consequent 

 upon an attempt to use 

 them. The karbi have 

 the reputation of being 



extremely fierce fighters 

 with their jaws. 



Another species 

 indigenous to Australia 

 is distinguished by the 

 name of kootchar ; and 

 it makes the entrance 

 to its nest in the form 

 of a tube of resinous 

 wax (propolis) an inch 

 long, the mouth of vrhich 

 is kept in a sticky con- 

 dition in order to trap 

 intruders. At night- 

 time the bees close the 

 entrance by building a 

 perforated curtain con- 

 si s t i n g of minute 

 globules of nearly H(|uid 

 g- u ni , w h i c h m a k e s 

 burglary difficult. Of a 

 similar character is the Insect Eyes. 



much lartrer entrance to '" "''* Pliotograph are sfpn the simple eyes placed between the huge compound eyes that 

 '"' cover the greater part of the head in some Insects. With few exceptions the comixjunil eves 



Photo hy\ 



[E. Step, F.L.S. 



are onlv pres 

 tran--niit iiii. 



oll.M.f tllr (h 



ptions the comixiund ( 

 nt in the hiial stage of Insect development. The simple eyes are thought not to 

 ;is. but to distinguish inerelv between light and darkness. The example given is 



igon-llirs. 



the nest of a species ' 



found at Singapore, 



which is quite an extfnsi\-e affair of many inches long and \-er\' thick. In appearance 



it is of almost pure resin of a brown tint, and looks as though modelled when in a 



molten condition ratlu-r than being built up bit 1)\- bit. 



One of the IJra/.ilian >pecies,- according to (".irard, al\\a\'s niaki^s its nest in 

 that of a species of termite. 



The method of rearing; the xouiig approaches more to that of the solitary-bees, 



** Trinona collina. - T. crassipcs 



