The Zoologist — November, 1869. 1913 



are probably very old birds. Did the infirmities of age induce these 

 venerable crows to give up the perils of migration, with an eye to the 

 eggs of pheasant and partridge instead of grouse ? 



Eagle Owl. — The bird stated by Mr. Tegelmeier, in the ' Field ' of 

 September 11th, to have been shot wild in Norfolk, was a young bird 

 of the year, escaped from confinement at Norlhrepps, near Cromer. 

 See 'Field' of September 18th. 



Henry Stevenson. 



The DeallCs Head and the Bees. By the Rev. Charles Bury, M.A. 



1 HAVE been a keeper of bees from my youth upwards, and I have 

 expended some thought, and a little money, in trying to establish an 

 improved system of bee management for my poorer neighbours — a 

 system at once practicable and profitable, within the compass of their 

 pocket and of their intellect. 



Now I have read, as has everyone else at all conversant with 

 apiarian literature, in connexion with bees, of certain remarkable 

 doings of the death's head moth {Acherontia Atropos), of its love of 

 honey in the general, and of its boldness in particular in entering the 

 hives and regaling itself uninvited on the stores laid up therein by the 

 bees for their own and their master's benefit. I have read, too, that 

 on the bees assailing the intruder, he or she, as the case may be, — 

 i. e. the moth, — has the tact to utter certain sounds so nearly re- 

 sembling those emitted under some circumstances by the queen bee, 

 that upon the utterance thereof the angry assailants immediately fall 

 back and allow this bold usurper of their sovereign's voice to leave 

 the hive without further molestation, after satisfying itself with a 

 fabulous quantity of honey. Now as this remarkable proceeding is 

 stated as a fact, known of their own knowledge by men of veracity 

 and careful observation, it was not for me or the like of me to doubt 

 its correctness. Nevertheless it is always pleasant to verify in one's 

 own experience the observations and statements of others; and so, if 

 I have had that satisfaction, at least in part, it may be also satis- 

 factory to your readers to be able to add to the list of authorities 

 upon the subject the name of an old contributor to the pages of the 

 ' Zoologist.' 



Be it known, then, to all who care to know it, that my bee-hives — 

 at least some of them — occupy a sort of balcony just outside the 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. IV. 3 I 



