72 



And Bryant well sang : — 



"The bee, 

 A more adventurous colonist than man, 

 With whom he came across the eastern deep, 

 Fills the savannas with his murmurings, 

 And hides his sweets, as in the golden age, 

 Within the hollow oak." 



adding with prophetic voice : — 



" I listen long 

 To his domestic hum, and think I hear 

 The sound of that advancing multitude 

 Which soon shall fill the deserts." 



( The Prairie. ) 



Fennimore Cooper, in his stories of The Prairie and Oak Openings has given delinea- 

 tions of the men, who, on the outskirts of civilization, made it their business to hunt'and 

 plunder the bees. 



But a spoiler apparently less formidable, but in reality more dangerous, followed up 

 the bee more closely than did its human foes. This was the Bee Moth (Galleria cereana* 



Fabr) a fellow exile. (Fig. 46 represents all its stages : a the full grown caterpillar,. 

 b the cocoon it spins, c the chrysalis, d the female moth with open wings, e the male with 

 closed wings.) And now, wherever bees are kept upon this continent, there is danger to 

 them from the " Bee Moth." A few words therefore upon the Bee Moth and its relatives 

 may be interesting to those who have the care of bees. 



The bee moths belong to that group of insects called Pyralidina, and to the family 

 GalleridcB in that group. Insects of the kind were known to the earliest writers on the 

 subject of bees. Aristotle and Virgil allude to them. The former says that the moths 

 and worms are expelled by the good bees ; but that the combs of the idle bees perish. 

 The latter numbers " the moths' dreadful progeny " among the enemies of the hive. 



In England three ditferent bee moths are known belonging to as many different 

 genera, l>ut all in the family Ga' They are Galleria cerella, Aphomia colonella y 



and Achoria griaella. The first and last named are found in the hives of the honey- 

 bee, and the second in humble-bees' nests. We will take the insects inversely so as to 

 end with the one we are most interested in. 



ACHROIA GRISELLA. 



Many years ago I had abundant opportunities for observing Achroia grisella through 

 all its changes. My accounts of the insect were published at the time in the Zoologist 

 and the Entomological Intelligencer. The larva of A. grisella is about nine lines in length 

 when full fed, and is rather hairy. It is very active, throwing itself vigorously about at 

 the slightest annoyance. Its colour is white with a tinge of pink. The head and second 

 segment are reddish brown. The spiracles are hardly perceptible. The pupa is pale 

 brown, and is enclosed in a white cocoon. It is usually secreted near the entrance under 

 the inside ligaments of the old-fashioned straw hives. The imago is from six to eleven, 



