3780 Insects. 



about this habit of the hive-bee. I will mention a few instances from amongst many. 

 A swarm settled in a hot day on an espalier in my garden ; before I had time to com- 

 mence hiving them, they took flight in a straight direction to Thornbury Castle, and 

 entered a crevice of the old wall on the south-east aspect. At night, after sunset, with 

 the help o'fa ladder, they were hived in safety and commenced working directly. On 

 another occasion, a swarm unperceived settled away among some peas late in the af- 

 ternoon, where they remained all night. I discovered them early next morning, and 

 told my man to get a hive for them, but before he arrived with it the bees were aroused 

 by the hot sun and went off with great velocity, no doubt having a young and skittish 

 queen. They flew 1200 yards in a direct westerly course, and settled in a hollow tree, 

 where they remained unmolested. On another occasion I had a hive with some old 

 combs in my garden in June. " Scouts and quarter-masters" were seen every day en- 

 tering this hive ; at last a prime swarm came off one of my old stocks, and after two 

 or three minutes' flight in the usual way, they settled under the alighting-board of the 

 hive with old combs, and hung in an immense bunch. I was obliged to dislodge 

 them from the board after waiting a long time to see if they would enter the hive, and 

 then hived them in the usual way. A fourth instance of a long flight of a cast is as 

 follows. A cast containing about 5000 bees took possession of a vermin-trap by the 

 sea-side, in a very remote part of Somersetshire. I saw these bees working from the 

 trap ; they had made combs a foot long, and had honey. The owner told me that he 

 had scoured the country and discovered that there were no be$s kept within four miles 

 of the place, evidently showing what a prodigious flight they had taken. In the last 

 instance the owner had neglected to watch his bees ; but it is quite plain that some 

 parties must have visited the wooden trap and communicated the locality in their own 

 way to the swarm. Many inexperienced persons have mistaken a desertion for a 

 swarm. In cases of desertion, which generally happen early in the spring, the bees 

 get dissatisfied with something, and set off in a few days in a direct line, generally 

 taking possession of the roof of some house, or a chimney, where they always perish : 

 it is a sort of desperate effort, but at last ends in their destruction ; the bees at these 

 times having neither numbers nor materials sufficient to make new combs. I allude 

 of course to desertions from the old stock. — Id. 



Note on the scarcer Species of Andrena being found on the Catkins of the Willow. — 

 For several years past I have captured from off the catkins of two willows (male and 

 female trees) several specimens of Andrena spinigera and A. apicata ; and last year a 

 specimen of A. eximia. And a friend has also captured off a willow in the neighbour- 

 hood of Cambridge, a female of Andrena Smithella, with three or four males, which 

 he considered as belonging to the same species. I give this information, thinking it 

 may lead collectors to be on the look-out as early as the first week in March, about 

 which time I have each year captured the above species. The cleanest are taken from 

 off the female tree, but bees loaded with pollen are easily freed from it by being placed 

 in a bottle lightly filled with grass, the mouth being covered with net to keep them in 

 until they have freed themselves from the pollen. I may add that I have a few spare 

 duplicates of Andrena distincta, taken last year, a specimen or two of which I shall 

 have pleasure in giving to any collector who may be in want of them. — W. H. L. 

 Walcott ; Clifton, Bristol, December, 1852. 



Voracity of the Larva of a Beetle. — One afternoon in July last, I noticed a large 

 earth-worm, about six inches long, crawling across the pathway in a field, with some 

 object attached to it which it appeared anxious to get rid of, as it kept writhing about 





