THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 299 



hundred wasps. Mr. Higgins, Her Grace's gardener, also 

 states that one hundred and three nests have been taken 

 within a circle of one mile from the Hall. With regard to 

 honey-bees, on the contrary, the number has been so large, 

 and the depredations so excessive and so general, that 

 complaints have been published in the daily papers, and 

 propositions have even been made to obtain the interference 

 of the legislation in restricting the number of hives in the 

 localities in which they are situate ! A word remains to be 

 said as to the relation between wasps and bees. Pettigrew 

 informs us that wasps, hornets, and humble-bees, seldom do 

 harm or gain admission to the hives; but this requires 

 modification or explanation as regards wasps; and it will be 

 well to attend more carefully and attentively to the subject. 

 Wasps quarrel and fight with bees, and of course in their 

 altercations they frequently drive the bees from the ripe fruit 

 on which both of them delight to feed. " Set a thief to catch 

 a thief" is an approved and time-honoured maxim; and 

 there is little douljt that one set of robbers is ever a check 

 on another; so that the paucity of wasps may in some 

 measure account for the bees exercising so freely their 

 marauding propensities. I may state that the large number 

 of letters I have received on this subject is doubtless 

 attributable to an enquiry of my own in the 'Field' news- 

 paper. — Edward Newman.] 



Gall on Hieracium umhellatum. — In a former communi- 

 cation to the 'Entomologist' (Entom. viii. 233) I spoke of 

 having seen a gall on Hieracium umbellatum, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Plymouth. I have since found some dried 

 specimens of this that were laid aside in a cupboard, and 

 now forward them to you. I gathered them several years 

 ago — I believe in the neighbourhood of Horrabridge, Devon, 

 about ten miles from Plymouth, and on the southern border 

 of Dartmoor. They prove to be very different from what I 

 sent on Hypochoeris radicata, and may perhaps be the work 

 of Trypeta reticulata — one of the insects mentioned by 

 Mr. Fitch in his interesting communication concerning the 

 other. — T. R.Archer Briggs ; 4, Portland Villas, Plymouth, 

 October 26, 1875. 



[I believe the galls are old specimens of Aulax sabaudi of 

 Hartig. — Edward A. Fitch.] 



