THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 299 
hundred wasps. Mr. Higgins, Her Grace’s gardener, also 
states that one hundred and three nests have been taken 
within a circle of one mile from the Hall. With regard to 
honey-bees, on the contrary, the number has been so large, 
and the depredations so excessive and so general, that 
complaints have been published in the daily papers, and 
propositions have even been made to obtain the interference 
of the legislation in restricting the number of hives in the 
localities in which they are situate! A word remains to be 
said as to the relation between wasps and bees. Pettigrew 
informs us that wasps, hornets, and humble-bees,-seldom do 
harm or gain admission to the hives; but this requires 
modification or explanation as regards wasps; and it will be 
well to attend more carefully and attentively to the subject. 
Wasps quarrel and fight with bees, and of course in their 
altercations they frequently drive the bees from the ripe fruit 
on which both of them delight to feed. “Set a thief to catch 
a thief” is an approved and time-honoured maxim; and 
there is little doubt that one set of robbers is ever a check 
on another; so that the paucity of wasps may in some 
measure account for the bees exercising so freely their 
marauding propensities. I may state that the large number 
of letters I have received on this subject is doubtless 
attributable to an enquiry of my own in the ‘ Field’ news- 
paper.— Edward Newman. | 
Gall on Hieractum umbellatum.—In a former communi- 
cation to the ‘Entomologist’ (Entom, viii. 233) I spoke of 
having seen a gall on Hieracium umbellatum, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Plymouth. I have since found some dried 
specimens of this that were laid aside in a cupboard, and 
now forward them to you. I gathered them several years 
ago—lI believe in the neighbourhood of Horrabridge, Devon, 
about ten miles from Plymouth, and on the southern border 
of Dartmoor. They prove to be very different from what I 
sent on Hypocherris radicata, and may perhaps be the work 
of Trypeta reticulata—one of the insects mentioned by 
Mr. Fitch in his interesting communication concerning the 
other.—T’. R. Archer Briggs; 4, Portland Villas, Plymouth, 
October 26, 1875. 
[I believe the galls are old specimens of Aulax sabaudi of 
Hartig.—Ldward A. Fitch.) 
