. 88 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



gymnopterorum} are frequently injurious to them. In Germany the bee- 

 louse (Braula ccsca Nitsch), whicn is about the size of a flea and allied to 

 the HippabosctE, often infests populous hives so as greatly to annoy the 

 bees by fixing itself upon them (sometimes two, three, or more on a single 

 bee), and making them restless and indisposed to their usual labours. 1 

 That universal plunderer the wasp, and his formidable congener the hornet, 

 often seize and devour them, sometimes ripping up their body to come 

 at the honey, and at others carrying off that part in which it is situated. 

 The former frequently takes possession of a hive, having either destroyed 

 or driven away its inhabitants, and consumes all the honey it contains. 

 Nay there are certain idlers of their own species, called by apiarists cor- 

 sair-bees, which plunder the hives of the industrious. From the curious 

 account which Latreille has given us of Philanthus apivorus, a wasp-like 

 insect, it appears that great havoc is made by it of the unsuspecting 

 workers, which it seizes while intent upon their daily labours, and carries 

 off to feed its young. 2 Another insect, which one would not have suspected 

 of marauding propensities, must here be introduced. Kuhn informs us, 

 that long ago (in 1799) some monks who kept bees, observing that they 

 made an unusual noise, lifted up the hive, when an animal flew out, which, 

 to their great surprise no doubt, for they at first took it for a bat, proved 

 to be the death's head hawk-moth (Acherontia atropos), already celebrated 

 as the innocent cause of alarm ; and he remembers that several, some 

 years before, had been found dead in the bee-houses. 3 M. Huber, also, in 

 1804, discovered that it had made its way into his hives and those of his 

 vicinity; and had robbed them of their honey. In Africa, we are told, it 

 has the same propensity ; which the Hottentots observing, in order to 

 monopolise the honey of the wild bees, have persuaded the colonists that 

 it inflicts a mortal wound. 4 This moth has the faculty of emitting a 

 remarkable sound, which he supposes may produce an effect upon the 

 bees of a hive somewhat similar to that caused by the voice of their queen, 

 which as soon as uttered strikes them motionless, and thus it may be 

 enabled to commit with impunity such devastation in the midst of myriads 

 of armed bands. 5 The larvae of two species of moth (Galleria cereana, 

 and Mellonella) exhibit equal hardihood with equal impunity. They, 

 indeed, pass the whole of their initiatory state in the midst of the combs. 

 Yet in spite of the stings of the bees of a whole republic, they continue 

 their depredations unmolested, sheltering themselves in tubes made of 

 grains of wax, and lined with silken tapestry, spun and wove by themselves, 

 which the bees (however disposed they may be to revenge the mischief 

 which they do them by devouring what to all other animals would be 

 indigestible, their wax) are unable to penetrate. These larvae are some- 

 times so numerous in a hive, and commit such extensive ravages, as to 

 force the poor bees to desert it and seek another habitation. 



I shall not delay you longer upon this subject by detailing what wild 

 animals suffer from insects, further than by observing that the two creatures 

 of this description in which we are rather interested, the hare and the 



1 KSllar on Ins. inf. to Gardeners, &c. 73. 



2 Latreille, Hist, des Fourmis, 307320. 

 5 Naturforscher, Stk. xvi. 74. 



4 Quoted from Campbell's Travels in South Africa, in the Quarterly Review for 

 July, 1815, 315. * Huber, Pref. xi xiii. 



