318 Miscellaneous . 



One curious question still remains to be decided in the natural 

 history of this insect, namely, the nature of the food of the larva. 

 Although the perfect insect is generally found on warm-blooded ani- 

 mals and man, there is no question that it is capable of breeding to 

 a vast extent in places not frequented by such animals. Rooms left 

 for a long time vacant, and some hot sandy localities, may be found 

 occasionally swarming with fleas. At all events the larvae are never 

 found on the animals attacked by the perfect insects. M. De France, 

 who endeavoured to determine the question, found numerous small 

 black grains in company with the eggs or larvae of the flea, and which 

 he asserts become the food of the larvae, being nothing else than 

 dried drops of congealed blood, which, upon being moistened, imme- 

 diately re-assume a fluid state and red colour. These grains have 

 been generally regarded as the excrement of the perfect fleas, but 

 M. De France considers them to be in fact drops of blood which have 

 fallen from the wounds made by the flea. My own opinion, now that 

 the remarkably powerful structure of the jaws of the mouth has been 

 discovered, is rather that the larvae roam about and feed upon hairs 

 or particles of woollen or feathers lying on the spots frequented by the 

 animals attacked by the perfect flea. 



The knowledge of these facts in the ceconomy of this insect sug- 

 gests that by carefully sweeping carpets, mats, &c, on which dogs 

 or cats are in the habit of lying, and by collecting the sweepings in 

 a dust-pan and burning them (instead of allowing the larvae to creep 

 away into cracks of the floor or even in the hollows between the 

 threads of the carpet), we may destroy the larvae in great numbers, 

 and thus prevent them from arriving at their perfect troublesome form. 

 — J. O. W. in the Gardeners' Chronicle for March 4. 



Instance of a singular Anomaly in the History of the Honey Bee. 

 By George Darling, Esq. 



Mons. Huber, in his wonderful and accurate researches into the 

 history of the Honey Bee, discovered that, if a young queen passes the 

 twenty-first day without intercourse with the drone, she will be only 

 partially fertile, laying nothing but the eggs of drone brood ; nor does 

 she lay these eggs in the appropriate comb, but in the comb proper 

 for workers. This curious fact I have seen proved several times ; 

 but one not noticed by the careful Frenchman came under my obser- 

 vation this summer. I had placed a young queen in a small experi- 

 mental hive ; she was very soon impregnated, and filled a sheet of 

 comb with eggs. I removed her to another hive, and, in the usual 

 time, the bees turned out several young brood for queens to make up 

 for her loss. One of these, at the proper time, emerged from the cell, 

 and destroyed the others. Three days after hatching she began to 

 lay eggs, and as I supposed all right, but about a week after, when 

 I examined the hive, I found the queen thrown out, and three cells 

 converted into royal ones ; but to my surprise, I found that all the 

 grubs were drones, both those in the forced royal cells, and those 

 through the combs ; and I have no doubt that the bees had, on find- 

 ing their queen imperfect in her functions, killed and thrown her out ; 

 but here their instinct had not been sufficient to teach them that a 



