FOREIGN BEES. 283 



in the autumn of the year 1830, by Dr. T. B. Wil- 

 son, at the suggestion of his friend Mr. R. Gunter of 

 Earl's Court, brought from London in a wire case. 

 It arrived in safety, and the bees swarmed several 

 times the first year ; and in the True Colonist (a 

 Hobart-Town newspaper) of February 14th 1835, 

 it is stated that a hive descended from Dr. Wilson's, 

 belonging to a gentleman in the neighbourhood of 

 Hobart-Town, had already swarmed eighteen times!*' 

 Major Mitchell states, in his recently published 

 account of his expedition into the interior of Australia, 

 that he sometimes met with bees in great plenty, and 

 some of them were not a little curious in their habits. 

 Although his rifle was in frequent use, he one day 

 found that a quantity of wax and honey had been 

 deposited in the barrel, and also in the hollow part 

 of the ramrod ! He had previously noticed a bee 

 occasionally entering the barrel, and it now appeared 

 that wax and honey had been lodged immediately 

 above the charge to the depth of about two inches. 

 The bee which he most frequently observed about 

 his tent, and which was probably the species that 

 selected this perilous depository, was as large as the 

 English bee, and had a sting. " We were now," he 

 says, in another part of his interesting work, " in a 

 ' land flowing with milk and honey ;' for the natives 

 with their new tomahawks extracted it in abundance 

 from the hollow branches of the trees, and it seemed 

 that, in the season, they could find it almost every- 

 where. To such inexpert clowns, as they probably 



