114 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
in the natural position of the insect walking as possible. For this 
setting boards similar to those used for butterflies will be required. 
If Hymenoptera are collected simply with a view to transmission 
by the post, after killing in the cyanide bottle they can be put into 
little triangular envelopes of paper, as butterflies very often are, each 
insect, however small, requiring a separate envelope. ‘hey will not, 
however, keep long thus, the fat-bodied heavy bees especially getting 
mouldy, greasy, full of mites, and often rotting. For quick trans- 
mission, however, this method of collecting answers very well, a num-. 
ber packing into a small box. 
Hymenoptera as a rule affect. bright sunny spots and flowering 
trees and shrubs. My experience is that insects belonging to the 
families Sphegidee, Pompilide and Larride keep as a rule to low 
bushes, and are often to be found walking on the ground in an ex- 
cited eager way searching for spiders, grass-hoppers, &c., with which 
they store their mud nests. Scoliade are sluggish creatures and 
can be picked off flowers with a pair of forceps. Mutillide, Ichneu- 
monide and Tenthredinidee are brutes to find and catch, and when 
caught, to preserve with legs, antenns, and ovi-positors intact. 
Formicidae (ants) are everywhere. They can, as I have already 
said, be collected in spirits ; but specimens should always be set up 
fixed by a drop of gum on cardboard triangles as described. It is 
difficult often to get hold of males and queens, and the collector has 
nearly always to fight for them. In default, however, one is thank- 
ful to get hold of the workers or neuters. 
I shall be thankful if any of the readers of this magazine will 
collect hymenoptera and send them to me packed in paper envelopes 
in a small tin-box by post. In return I will engage to send back all 
specimens sent, naming such as I am able to identify, or to exchange 
for them Burmese hymenoptera, or named specimens in paper of 
Burmese butterflies, 
SOME COLD WEATHER NOTES FROM GUZBRAT. 
By Caprain E. F. Becuur, L.A... F.Z.S, 
Tus last cold weather in Guzerat has been chiefly remarkable for 
the scarcity of snipe, the cause of which was want of late rains, large 
jheels, in which snipe last year were shot in Decem ber, being dry by 
the end of October, 
Duck have also been scarcer, lam told, than last 
octet seinenoamernie in 
