NOVEMBER. 1 5 



'several people in town saw them and compared notes on 

 the subject. The following information, taken from a 

 paper I wrote some years ago, may be new to many 

 interested people: "In March 1885 the Canterbury 

 Acclimatisation Society liberated ninety- three females 

 (queens) of Bonibiis terrestris in the neighbourhood of 

 Christchurch. They appear to have established them- 

 selves at once, and increased rapidly. In January 1886 

 two were seen by Mr J. D. Enys at Castle Hill, on the 

 west coast ; and early in 1887 they were reported from 

 Kaikoura in the north and Timaru in the south, while 

 by the autumn of the same season (March 1888) they 

 had become established in the Oamaru district. Towards 

 the very end of the same season they had spread up 

 the Waitati Valley, through the Lindis Pass, and were 

 observed on the Hawea flats. In Dunedin they appeared 

 quite suddenly in the second week of February 1888, 

 and were almost simultaneously reported from Waihola. 

 In November 1889 they were first recorded from the 

 head of Lake Wakatipu, and in the beginning of 1890 

 were observed in the neighbourhood of Invercargill." 



The subsequent wonderful increase of these insects was 

 so rapid that beekeepers began to fear that the honey 

 bee was going to be crowded out. But from some cause 

 or other, which is not at present known, they appear 

 to have diminished in numbers of late years. Darwin's 

 explanation of the comparative abundance or scarcity of 

 humble bees in England is familiar to many, but as it 

 may not be known to some I may with advantage re- 

 produce it here. He is discussing the question of the 

 fertilisation of the red or meadow clover (Tmfolium pra- 

 tenxe), and he asserts, on the authority of a Colonel 

 Newman, that it depends on the number of cats in the 

 district. This seems a most absurd statement at first 

 sight, but it is quite correct, as the following explanation 

 will show : Red clover is only visited and fertilised by 

 humble bees, but "the number of humble bees in any 

 district depends in a great measure on the number of 

 field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests, and the 



