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that wasps were actually starved to death during a long continuance of wet weather ; 
this, however, would not account for their present disappearance. 
Prof. Westwood said that one of his correspondents had lately inquired of him 
whether earwigs were injurious to bees; Mr. Stone’s communication answered the 
question with respect to wasps, and he had no doubt that earwigs, which were this 
year unprecedentedly numerous, were equally injurious to bees, penetrating the hives 
and consuming the larve. 
Mr. Bond read, from the ‘Standard’ newspaper of the 2nd of September, the 
following extract from the letter of a correspondent at Coburg :— 
“Tn the centre of the town stands the large and handsome church of St. Maurice, 
built in the early part of the fifteenth century, and having two towers, one unfinished, 
as is often the case (and history gives the reason here, that Tully, in the Thirty Years’ 
War, carried off the money applicable to the purpose), the other reaching toa total 
height of 263 feet, of which the uppermost part is placed over an open belfry, and has 
a spiral termination of wood, covered with copper, out of which rises a long spindle, at 
the top of which is a golden ball, and above that again is the weather-cock. Shortly 
before five o’clock in the afternoon of the 28th of August, smoke was seen to issue 
from the small spire above the belfry. The news soon spread that the church-tower 
was on fire; the fire alarm was given, according to the German fashion, from the 
church-tower itself, the brigade of volunteer firemen donned their helmets, and 
rushed in all haste from their ordinary vocations to the post of danger, an express 
messenger was sent to the burgomaster, who was gone to a neighbouring village, and 
the whole population turned out to see the curl of smoke gradually ascending and 
dissappearing in the clear blue sky above. Nor was their anxiety for the old church 
without cause; twice before in its history, once in 1807 and again in 1812, had the 
lightning set this very tower on fire. But whence now could the fire have come? 
The spot whence the smoke issued was far above any place in the tower ever used or 
visited ; the day was bright and clear, and there had not been, and was not, any sign 
of a storm ; the heat of the sun, it is true, was excessive, but no one could remember 
an instance where fire had been kindled by the lord of day. Whilst the spectators 
eagerly discussed these questions, hundreds of .eyes were watching the ascent of the 
firemen from point to point until they reached the belfry under the spire; a scaffold 
was there hastily constructed, upon which a ladder was raised and the cause and seat 
of the fire closely investigated. Sundry motions of the fireman on the ladder on high 
excited no little mystery below, for he seemed to be engaged in conflict with wasps or 
other warlike insects. The news soon sped to earth that the cause of all this commo- 
tion was millions of ants which had settled in countless numbers upon the steeple; 
indeed, all over the upper part of the tower: and as they rose to perform their gyra- 
tions in the air had created that appearance of smoke which could not be detected as 
a counterfeit from below. The mysterious motions of the man on the ladder were now 
explained. They were his attenspts to beat off his insectile companions from himself, 
upon whom they were quite as disposed to settle as upon the church steeple itself. I 
am not sufficiently acquainted with insect life to be able to speak scientifically as to 
the genus of ant that suceeeded in so distinguishing itself; but having seen several 
that were brought down from the spire, I am able to say that they were an ant ofa 
reddish colour, slightly larger than our common black ant, and of course furnished with 
wings.” 
