] 84 MESSES. C. HOENE AND F. SMITH ON HTMENOPTEEA 



from the beautiful white marble arches ; but as soon as a nest is destroyed it is renewed 

 at a few feet distance. They sometimes choose cupboards to buxld their nests in; and 

 when in one case they had made their comb in one in daily use, they molested no one. 

 This was at Nynee Tal, in the veranda of a house called Maldon, now the Govern- 



ment House. 



The manner in which these bees adhere, after having planted their stings, as com- 

 pared with the habits of the Polistes, is worthy of note, although of course every one 

 knows how often they leave their stings behind them in the wound, and thus meet 



their own death. 



In one case of an attack by bees in the camp of Mr. B. W. Colvin, Magistrate, of 

 Mainpuri, they looked, I am told, like a black mass of insects on the clothes on the 

 backs of our men, upon which they had alighted ; and in this case, I imagine, most of 

 them were unable to withdraw their stings from the cotton-cloth jackets in which they 

 had fixed them. 



Besides the moth before alluded to, these insects have many enemies. Merops 

 viridis (the Bee-eater) plays sad havoc amongst them ; but in the hills, at least, the 

 lizards, who live in the cracks of the rocks and in the hollows in the stone walls, are 

 still more destructive. 



Colonel H. Ramsay, C.B., the Commissioner of Kumaon, with whom I was staying 

 last year, near Almorah, North-west Province, settled many hives in trunks of trees 

 covered up with stones, but could make nothing of them by reason of the lizards, the 

 large blue species so common in the Himaleh, probably Tiliqua rufescens. These 

 animals would lie in wait and snap up the bees, regardless of their stings, as they 

 alighted at the hive ; in fact, they fairly destroyed several swarms. 



Again, the Crested Honey-Buzzard [Pernis cristata), a small hawk, darts down on 

 the comb and carries off a large portion in its claws, which, in spite of the bees, who 

 fly at and attack it on all sides, it quietly eats on a neighbouring bough. How it 

 escapes their stings I could never make out. I once also saw a nest of Icaria taken 

 off a cornice just as I was preparing to secure it, having brought a ladder for the 

 purpose ; and these insects sting even more viciously than the bees. 



Again, in the hills, as all know, the bears make prodigious efforts to get at the comb 

 and honey when in trees. They also eat, I believe, the grubs and bee-bread; and 

 although they seem annoyed, they care little for the bee-stings. These insects often 

 hang their combs under rocks where no bear can touch them, and where they are also 

 well sheltered from the weather. 



Mr. F. Moore, of the India Office, has kindly and carefully compared the Galleria 

 of the North-west Provinces with the specimen of the English species in the British 

 Museum, and holds it to be the same insect, viz. Galleria mellolella— which is a very 

 curious fact, the more so as this species extends over the whole of the North-western 

 Provinces of India. The native name of this bee in the North-west Provinces is Dingar. 



