(22 THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE AND CARPENTER-BEE. 
eater. This bird has lately found out that mutton is good; and 
actually combines in flocks to attack sheep, eating the live flesh 
from the animal’s back and sides. 
But what has all this to do with orioles and bumble bees? Let 
us see. 
At the beginning of June, I received a small package from Rey. 
Dr. Campbell, President of Rutger’s College. It contained several 
carpenter-bees, each with its head detached. All the president 
could teil me, was that they were picked up under a tree in the 
college campus ; and an explanation was asked of the phenomenon. 
_ A good deal puzzled, I ventured a provisional statement, a sort of 
hypothesis which, at least, had the merit of seeming probable. 
It was shot at a venture and, like such shots generally, it hit wide 
' of the mark. I had just closed quite a long course of lectures on 
natural history in the grammar school of that institution, and 
this question, becoming somewhat general, made me feel like one 
put on his mettle, so I went at it resolved to work out the case if 
possible. 
In the campus were two beautiful horse-chestnut trees, scu- 
lus hippocastaneum. They were large trees, and resplendent with 
their dense panicles of bloom; every one, as it stood gorgeously 
upright, seemed a thyrsus worthy the hand of a god. These trees 
formed the great attraction of honey-seeking insects. It was only 
under these trees that the headless bees were found, but there they 
lay in hundreds; the ground was literally speckled with them. 
Strange to say, the slain insects consisted of but one species and 
one sex. They were carpenter-bees, of the species Xylocopa Car- 
olina, and all were males. Now these males are stingless, and 
have a white face. I picked them up by handfuls, all headless, 
the heads lying on the ground. I searched diligently for a head 
without that characteristic white face which designates the sting- 
less male, but could not find one. Indeed, I entertain no doubt 
that, of the large number of these decapitated bees, every one Was 
a stingless male. One fact was now apparent, the massacre was 
made up among the flowers, while the insects were i quest of 
honey. But what had done it? How was it done? And for what 
purpose? On these three questions the whole case rested. If 
they could be answered, the mystery would be solved. 
It appeared under the microscope that the severance of the head 
from the body was clean and not bunglingly done. The head was 
