208 NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 
water, the Goby lying with its body under the shell, and its 
head looking out. My friend, Mr. ALLAN B. Dicx (to whom I 
am indebted for the fact), observing this, turned the shell up, 
whereupon a number of shrimps at once “ went for” the eggs 
which were now exposed to view; the Goby drove them away, 
and then set to work, by digging with its head under one end 
of the shell, to replace it in its former position, which after 
some time and labour it succeeded in doing, when it resumed 
its place like a sentinel in his box. A. O. W. 
WASP EATING Wasp LARV2. 
On September roth, 1880, I noticed a worker Wasp / Vespa sp.) 
flying out of the hole of a nest which had been destroyed by 
pouring in gas tar. The Wasp had a wasp-grub in its mouth, 
which I thought she was rescuing. She alighted with it close 
to me, and I boxed both. On opening the box a few hours 
later the grub had disappeared, and must have been eaten by 
its unnatural relative, which, however, may have been of a 
different species. KE Owe 
QuEEN WASPS AND COTONEASTER SCALE. 
In the beginning of June, Cotoneaster microphylla is very 
attractive to Queen Wasps of all the species that occur in our 
district. They do not visit the flowers, but on alighting on the 
shrub (which covers a sunny bank by my drive at Colwyn Bay), 
descend at once among the stems. If closely watched they will 
be seen to run rapidly over those stems and leaves where the 
Cotoneaster scale (Secanium ribis) is abundant. In order to 
ascertain what the attraction was, I enclosed a Queen in a large 
wide-mouthed bottle, containing some twigs of Cotoneaster 
covered with scale. As soon as she had become accustomed to 
confinement, which only took a few minutes, she began to travel 
all over the stems and leaves, and by watching her through a 
lens I could see her tongue licking up the secretions from the 
scale off them as she moved. As at this time of the year the 
Wasp’s Nest, even if formed, very rarely has any workers 
hatched, the destruction of a Queen means the prevention of a 
nest, and a boy stationed by a bank of Cotoneaster with a ring 
net of muslin, would soon destroy Queens enough to make a 
very considerable difference in the number of Wasps in the 
summer. In 1881 I caught 250 Queens in two or three hours, 
and whether from this or some other cause there were certainly 
very few Wasps in the late summer and autumn. I identified the 
following species in the proportions per 100 given below, viz.: 
Vespa rufa - - - 65 
V. germanica - - =e dil5 
V. britannica - - an iO 
V. sylvestris - - - 7 
V. vulgaris - - - 3 
