THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



195 



with the legs, as if to free it from some 

 irritating substance. 



Although in an air with far less smoke 

 in it, they yielded as soon as the locusts. 



Nearly two tablespoonfuls of the pow- 

 der was burned in the kitchen, with the 

 windows closed. 



The flies were soon affected in the part 

 of the room where the smoke went, but 

 only one was seen to become helpless. 



Several gnats on the window became 

 helpless in a very short time, and a mos- 

 quito soon yielded. 



These last two instances were very 

 marked. 



It would seem that the insects tried 

 were affected in the following order : 



Ground-beetles. Flies. 



Locusts. Mosquitoes. 



Crickets. Gnats. 



AMERICAN vs. ITALIAN BEES. 



BY PROF. A. J. COOK.* 



It would seem from the above that 

 American-bred bees have shorter tongues 

 than those direct from Italy. It seems 

 very probable that " natural selection," the 

 very law which raised the Italians to their 

 position of superiority, also gave to them 

 their longer tongues. Shut up in their 

 mountain home, a mere isolated basin, 

 where competition must have been very 

 excessive, Nature took advantage of every 

 favorable variation and developed those 

 striking excellences peculiar to the Italian. 

 During these ages there was no kindly bee- 

 master possessed of the intelligence suffi- 

 cient to nurse the weaklings, nor any " Dol- 

 lar Queen business " to stimulate indis- 

 criminate breeding, and the weak "died 

 victims to starvation. And so we are in- 

 debted to the stern, inexorable law of 

 nature for the incomparable breeding which 

 wrought out such admirable results in far- 

 famed Liguria. Unquestionably the crowd- 

 ed apiaries of Austria and Germany have 

 heightened the " struggle for life," and had 

 a similar tendency to develop superior ex- 

 cellence in the European black bees. It 



* From a recent paper on the Tongue of the Honey Bee, in 

 the A merican Bee Journal. 



is more than probable that the German 

 bees of crowded Europe have longer 

 tongues and are generally superior to the 

 same in America, where they have long 

 been favored with broad, floral areas and 

 comparative absence of competition. I 

 should expect that this very law might 

 have developed varieties of the black race 

 which are superior to others of the same 

 race. It is more than possible that " sur- 

 vival of the fittest " explains the origin of 

 the superior varieties which are said to 

 exist in various provinces of Europe. For 

 the same reason we should surely expect 

 superior excellence in the Cyprian bees. 

 Crowded as they have been for long years 

 or ages in their small island home, the 

 principle of " survival of the fittest " must 

 have been working powerfully to weed 

 out the inferior and to preserve and make 

 stronger the superior. And so the great 

 poet has well said : " Sweet are the uses 

 of adversity." 



From the above considerations it seems 

 obvious, that would we perpetuate the ex- 

 cellences given us by the skillful breeding 

 of nature, though we may not destroy all the 

 feeble, as nature has done, we must assur- 

 edly study and observe so closely, that we 

 shall know of a surety which are our very 

 superior queens, and be even more careful 

 to breed from no other. Whether care or 

 carelessness will be most promoted by our 

 present system, I leave for you to say. But 

 I do wish that we might have at least 

 a few breeders with time, means, caution, 

 skill, and patience, who would work 

 with earnest zeal to not only keep all the 

 excellence we now have, but to augment 

 this excellence, as I am sure it may be 

 augmented. 



But if our cheap queen system is to con- 

 tinue, then, surely, we may well stimulate 

 frequent importations from Italy and Cy- 

 prus, and thus hope to compensate in part 

 for what will be lost by hasty, careless and 

 indiscriminate breeding. 



It is stated that last year the Colorado 

 Potato-beetle reduced the starch produc- 

 tion of Coos County, N. H., to two-tenths 

 of what it formerly was. 



