DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH 145 



but there is great difficulty in hiving the swarms. These bees 

 continue to store honey during the winter months, although 

 that is the dry season, with few flowers ; and they work in all 

 weathers, even during a heavy thunderstorm. 



The enemies of the Madagascar bee are, in the first place, rats, 

 then ants and the wax-moth ; but the greatest enemy of all is 

 the death's-head moth (Sphinccatropos), which is very common. 

 He enters the hive fearlessly, for although the bees crowd round 

 him they have no power to stop him, as their stings cannot 

 pierce that downy body, with its tough skin, but merely slip 

 along it harmlessly. As soon as he is within he keeps his wings 

 vibrating with a low humming noise and leisurely sucks his 

 fill a very long fill. The damage he does is immense, and hives 

 have been known to be sucked dry, and not a drop of honey to 

 be found in them, so that the bees quite give up resisting. 

 Other enemies of the bee are a parasitical solitary wasp, which 

 lays its eggs in the hive ; and another wasp which seizes the 

 bees when returning to the hive for the sake of their laden 

 honey-bag, and it also kills them with wonderful celerity. 



The Malagasy have a good general idea of the economy of the 

 hive, and of the habits of the bees. They usually find the wild 

 nests by watching the flight of the laden bees, and then by 

 listening during the hot part of the day, when the bees are 

 " playing." At most places the people know of a number of 

 wild nests, over which they keep supervision. In many 

 villages they make large quantities of mead, more especially 

 when the rite of circumcision is being observed. For bees'-wax 

 there is always a ready sale. 1 



Madagascar, like most tropical countries, is not without a 

 fair share of spiny and prickly plants. Perhaps most in 

 evidence in the interior is the prickly pear (Opuntia ferox), 

 which was universally used in old times as a thick hedge for 

 the defence of the ancient towns and villages. With its large 

 needle-like spines, an inch to an inch and a half long, studding its 

 broad fleshy leaves, and capable of inflicting a wound difficult 

 to heal, and with smaller spines covering the flowers and the 

 fruit, it is easy to see that to a barefooted and lightly clothed 

 people such a hedge presented a very formidable, not to say 

 impassable, barrier. The flowers are large and handsome, 

 yellow and red in colour, and growing at the edge of the leaves 



