78 THE BIOLOGICAL REVIEW. 



interest in any of these ; many of them starved to death in the 

 presence of all three. By these experiments I proved that the 

 young Melee larvae do not feed on any of the products of the 

 hive. They appeared so much earlier than I had expected that, 

 unfortunately, I had not secured a hive of bees, and could not 

 then get one in which to put the Melee larvae. Neither could I 

 obtain any specimens of living hymenoptera. I secured a few 

 living specimens of the housefly and of the large flesh flies, and 

 put them in the cage from time to time ; the Melees at once 

 seized on them with great avidity, but in an hour or two they 

 •dropped off. 



M. americanus were very numerous in the autumn of 1880 

 and in 1881. Since then they have been rather rare in the 

 County of York. A collector would not find more than perhaps 

 three or four pairs in a season, but in the seasons above men- 

 tioned it was not unusual to find, in low, grassy fields, twenty 

 ■or more specimens closely huddled in a moving mass. 



In all my collecting in the County of York I have never yet 

 taken M. angusticollis (the spring form). It has been reported 

 several times, but investigation always proved it to having been 

 mistaken for a much smaller species, M . niger, which has made 

 its appearance here within the last fifteen years, and is always 

 found in the spring season. 



VESPA VULGARIS. 



On August 3, 1893, while walking through a clump of 

 Asclepias cornidi, I observed a $ wasp pounce on a fine large 

 Ctenucha virginica. She seized the moth with her fore feet and 

 stung it in the thorax, when the struggling of the moth imme- 

 diately ceased. She then began to cut off the wings and legs, 

 and, after having trimmed off several of the legs and one of the 

 fore wings, she seized the moth with her fore feet and attempted 

 to fly away with it, but very soon fell among the grass, and 

 while she was busily engaged in trimming off the remaining 

 wings to lighten the load, I put them both in my cyanide bottle, 

 and they are now in my collection. 



Wm. Brodie. 



Toronto. 



