426 Carter : Mutilated Bees. 



top of my head, and once a tawny owl attacked me, striking 

 my face several times, causing blood to flow, but I have 

 never experienced anything so determined as this attack by 

 the grouse. I admired him tremendously as, apart from his 

 courage (characteristic of most grouse), he was in splendid 

 feather. It was quite a treat to have such a handsome fellow 

 strutting about and crowing defiance at such close quarters. 

 I learned that he had been reared by hand, and was left per- 

 fectly at liberty. 



MUTILATED BEES. 



J. W. CARTER, F.E.S., 

 Bradford. 



During August last, whilst walking on the Patterdale Road, 

 just at the head of Ullswater, Mr. Haxby and I noticed a large 

 number of dead bees [Bomhiis terrestris) under a large lime tree, 

 which was densely hung with flowers, as indeed all the lime 

 trees in the district were. Each bee had a neat circular hole in 

 the thorax, as finely done as if it had been executed with a 

 mechanical drill, and in addition to this, ninety per cent, had 

 the terminal segment of the abdomen entirely eaten away, and 

 the contents of both thorax and abdomen were removed. 



On seeing them my mind reverted to the early days of 

 ' The Naturalist,' in fact, to the note contributed by the late 

 James \'arley (' Nat.', \o\. III., 1877-8, p. 40). He there 

 describes a similar phenomenon at \^'oodsome, near Hudders- 

 field, where he found a large number of bees under exactly 

 similar circumstances. In this case specimens were sent to 

 Mr. F. Smith, of the British Museum, who was then our greatest 

 authority on the British Aculeate Hymenoptera. Mr. Smith 

 replied that the specimens were workers of the common 

 Bomhus liiconan, and expressed the opinion that this destruc- 

 tion was the work of some species of bird or birds, perhaps a 

 butcher-bird ! 



In a note in the same volume of ' The Naturalist,' (p. qz). 

 Mr. S. L. Mosley states that an egg of the Red-backed Shrike 

 was exhibited at a meeting of the Huddersfield Naturalists' 

 Society, on October 20th, of the same year, ' taken from the 

 neighbourhood of Farnley,' not more than a couple of miles 



