NOTES FROM GREAT YARMOUTH. 389 



cell and suddenly descending into the adjoining one with re- 

 markable celerity. A few odd Bees crawled disconsolately among 

 the wrecked comb, as if looting in their own fallen city. The 

 inch-long white cylindrical pupa-cases were exceedingly tough, 

 requiring some force to tear them. The "ripe" larvae must 

 have overlapped continuously those that had metamorphosed 

 before them, for they lay end across end, like tiles, as regularly 

 as leaves in a laurel wreath. Placing some sections of comb, 

 with the insects in every stage, into a wrapper of brown paper, 

 I observed next day that the larvae had eaten holes in it. I sent 

 my prize to my keeper-son at the insect house in the Zoological 

 Gardens, where he said it made an interesting exhibit. I think 

 it would be desirable that any entomologist who may come 

 across interesting insect episodes of a like nature should send 

 them to this popular and educational institution. 



I may add that my Bee friend assured me this was his only 

 hive that had so suffered ; and he thought that it was as well 

 that the Moths had founded up a sickly colony and left the 

 healthy ones to take care of themselves. 



My friend the Bee-man afterwards took me to see a bed 

 of peas, and complained to me that the numerous empty torn 

 pods had been emptied by Jays that came in the early morning 

 from an adjoining small wood. Certainly he had cause for 

 complaint, and may have correctly adjudged the culprits. One 

 side only had been pecked into ribbons and the peas extracted. 

 He asserted that the birds were so cunning he could not get a 

 shot at them. 



July 28th. — Observed a couple of men mowing grass with a 

 machine on a marsh. Around and behind them flew many 

 scores of Swallows and Martins, greedily snapping up the 

 disturbed insects that had been in hiding during the short 

 cold spell that just then obtained. 



On August 16th a young White Wyandotte Cockerel came 

 along my ditch bank with a nearly full-grown Field Vole 

 (Microtus agrestis) depending from his mandibles, struggling 

 feebly. Once or twice he banged it on the clayey soil, shaking 

 it vigorously, but was too wise to let it loose for a moment. 

 It was only after a chase and a vigorous thwacking with my felt 

 hat that the fowl dropped the rodent, unfortunately quite at the 



