INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 123 



corsair-bees, which plunder the hives of the industrious. — From the 

 curious account which Latreille has given us of Philanthus apivorus, a 

 wasphke insect, it appears that great ha>voc is made by it of the unsuspect- 

 ing workers, which it seizes while intent upon their daily labors, and car- 

 ries off to feed its young. ^ Another insect, which one would not have 

 suspected of marauding propensities, must here be introduced. Kuhn 

 informs us, that long ago (in 1799) some monks who kept bees, observ- 

 ing that they made an unusual noise, lifted up the hive, when an animal 

 flew out, which, to their great surprise no doubt, for they at first took it 

 for a bat, proved to be the death's head hawk-moth (Acherontia atropos), 

 already celebrated as the innocent cause of alarm ; and he remembers 

 that several, some years before, had been found dead in the bee-houses.^ 

 M. Huber, also, in 1804, discovered that it had made its way into his 

 hives and those of his vicinity, and had robbed them of their honey. In 

 Africa, we are told, it has the same propensity ; which the Hottentots 

 observing, in order to monopolize the honey of the wild bees, have per- 

 suaded the colonists that it inflicts a mortal wound. ^ This moth has the 

 faculty of emitting a remarkable sound, which he supposes may produce 

 an effect upon the bees of a hive somewhat similar to that caused by the 

 voice of their queen, which as soon as uttered strikes them motionless, 

 and thus it may be enabled to commit with impunity such devastation in 

 the midst of myriads of armed bands.^ The larvae of two species of 

 moth {Galleria cereana, and Mellonella) exhibit equal hardihood with 

 equal impunity. They, indeed, pass the whole of their initiatory state in 

 the midst of the combs. Yet in spite of the stings of the bees of a whole 

 republic, they continue their depredations unmolested, sheltering themselves 

 in tubes made of grains of wax, and lined with silken tapestry, spun 

 and wove by themselves, which the bees (however disposed they may be 

 to revenge the mischief which they do them by devouring what to all 

 other animals would be indigestible, their wax) are unable to penetrate. 

 These larvas are sometimes so numerous in a hive, and commit such exten- 

 sive ravages, as to force the poor bees to desert it and seek another habi- 

 tation. 



I shall not delay you longer upon this subject by detailing what wild 

 animals suffer from insects, further than by observing that the two crea- 

 tures of this description in which we are rather interested, the hare and 

 the rabbit, do not escape their attack. The hare in Lapland is more tor- 

 ^ mented by the gnats than any other quadruped. To avoid this pest it is 

 obliged to leave the cover of the woods in full day, and seek the plains: 

 hence the hunters say, that of three litters which a hare produces in a 

 year, the first dies by the cold, the second by gnats, and only the third 

 escapes and comes to maturity.^ — We learn from the ingenious Mr. Clark, 

 that the American rabbit and hare are infested by the largest species of 

 CEstrus^ yet discovered ; and our domestic rabbits sometimes swarm with 

 the bed-bug. This was the case with some kept by two young gentle- 



' Latreille, Hist, des Fourmis, 307—320. * Naturforscher, Stk. xvi. 74. 



' Quoted from Campbell's Travels in South Africa., in the Quarterly Review for July, 

 1815, 315. * Huber, Pref xi— xiii. » De Geer, ii. 83. 



* Considered by Mr. Clark as a new genus, which he has named Cuterebra, and of which 

 he has described three species. — Essay on the Bats of Horses, &c. p. 63. t. 2. f. 24 — 29. 



