PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. Cl. 



mass several feet in length and an inch or two broad, which 

 creeps along like a huge worm. They finally collect into a ball 

 and gradually burrow into the ground, whence they appear in 

 the perfect state as small black flies. 



HYMENOPTERA. 



The special interest that attaches to the Order Hymenoptera, 

 consisting of the bees, ants, &c., in connection with migration 

 lies in the fact that the reason for the migration is generally 

 obvious to us, and not so apparently objectless as in the case of 

 so many insects, To take the most well-known case of the 

 common hive bee. When the hive becomes over-populated, the 

 queen leaves it with a portion of her subjects and founds a new 

 community at some distance, and the same thing may occur 

 several times in the same season. This habit is, however, 

 confined to certain species of bee, and is never, for instance, 

 exercised by humble bees or wasps, in which the community 

 does not continue to exist for more than one season. A 

 different form of migration takes place amongst the ants, which 

 would be unable to follow the example of the hive bee, owing to 

 the wingless state of the workers. In the latter part of the 

 summer great swarms of male and female ants issue forth from 

 the nest and pervade the air at some distance from the ground, 

 performing a sort of dance like gnats. All with the exception 

 of a very few pairs are destroyed in various ways, and the few 

 surviving females found new colonies. 



White ants or Termites, though belonging to a different order, 

 Neuroptera, have much the same habits, the object of their 

 migration from their native nest being the foundation of new 

 communities. 



Both ants and white ants, of certain species, at times make 

 organised foraging expeditions, which bear a certain resemblance 

 to the migration of other insects in that they consist of hosts of 



