182 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 944 



mites, a singular Nematode worm, SpJiwru- 

 laria homhi, whicli lives in the abdomen of 

 the queen, and a Microsporidian belonging to 

 tlie genus Nosema and allied to the N. apis 

 recently shown to be the cause of the " Isle of 

 Wight disease " of the honey-bee. Several of 

 these parasites may simultaneously attack a 

 colony of humble-bees and completely destroy 

 it in a very short time. The reviewer, on 

 August 18, 1909, found under a stone at Zer- 

 matt, Switzerland, a small alpine humble-bees' 

 colony which had been utterly wiped out by 

 no less than three of these parasites." The 

 cells and brood had been devoured by a mass 

 of wax-moth larvas (Aphomia) which were 

 nearly ready to pupate. Among these lay a 

 number of puparia of the Tachinid Brachy- 

 coma, while perched on the top of the nest 

 among four dead and dying humble-bees was 

 a fine female Mutilla europwa. It is certainly 

 remarkable that notwithstanding the inroads 

 of all these parasites and praedators and the 

 small size of the colonies compared with those 

 of many other social insects, the humble-bees, 

 nevertheless, manage not only to survive, but 

 to maintain their position among the com- 

 monest insects of the north temperate zone. 

 And this dominance of the genus Bombus is 

 even more surprising when we stop to con- 

 sider that its species very easily succumb to 

 excessive moisture, especially in countries like 

 Great Britain. 



Chapters V. to VII. of Sladen's work treat 

 of the practical methods of studying the 

 humble-bees, of finding and taking their nests, 

 of the construction of artificial or observation 

 hives, and of attracting to the latter the over- 

 wintered queens. In these chapters, which 

 show how Sladen acquired his intimate knowl- 

 edge of humble-bee behavior, we can also de- 

 tect the advantages he has secured from his 

 practical study of the honey-bee. By " domes- 

 tication " he means merely the bringing of the 

 humble-bee into the same relations to man as 

 those obtaining in the case of the honey-bee. 

 In the proper sense of the term, of course, 

 neither of these insects can be domesticated. 



The eighth chapter of the work is devoted 



to the taxonomy of the British humble-bees 

 and is illustrated by five fine colored plates, 

 showing the males and females, and a plate of 

 line-drawings, showing the male genitalia, of 

 the 17 species of Bombus and six species of 

 Psithyrus known to occur in Great Britain. 

 The work concludes with a short chapter on 

 making a collection of humble-bees, one con- 

 taining a number of interesting notes and 

 anecdotes and a brief appendix with some 

 additional miscellaneous observations. It is 

 certain that this volume will long remain a 

 classic and an inspiration not only to British 

 students of humble-bees, but to many of our 

 entomologists, whom its perusal should en- 

 courage to acquire an equally intimate knowl- 

 edge of the practically all but unknown habits 

 of the numerous North American Bomhi. 



W. M. Wheelee 



The Snahes of South Africa: Their Venom 

 and the Treatment of Snahe Bite. By F. 

 W. FiTzSiMONs. With 193 figures, mostly 

 original photographs. New edition. Cape 

 Town and Pretoria, T. Mashew Miller; New 

 York, Longmans, Green & Company. Pp. 

 xvi + 547. 



This book is a natural history of South 

 African snakes that, while written in a popu- 

 lar way and primarily for South Africans, and 

 mainly devoted to the relations of the poison- 

 ous species to man, deserves to be brought to 

 the attention of students of herpetology. The 

 writer attempts to acquaint the residents of 

 South Africa with the general habits of the 

 snakes of their region, and to point out to the 

 general reader, in simple language, the possi- 

 bilities of being bitten by a poisonous snake, 

 the action of the venom, and the best treat- 

 ment that the investigators of the nature of 

 snake venom have worked out. 



As the principal aim of the book is thus to 

 educate the non-scientific readers in a region 

 where venomous snakes abound, one can not 

 quarrel with the author for devoting consider- 

 able space to the poisonous species, even 

 though his only original contributions to this 

 subject are the results of investigations of the 

 toxicity of the South African species. There 



