1060 The American Naturalist. [ December, 
Cecindelid Larve.—H. F. Wickham describes" the larva of Ce- 
cindela as “a somewhat elongate, whitish grub, with a broad, metallic 
colored head and prothorax, and a large hump, bearing two hooks, 
on the fifth abdominal segment. They excavate holes in sunny spots 
and lie in wait for prey, with the head closing up the mouth of the 
burrow; when an insect comes within reach, it is seized by the long 
jaws of the larva and the juices extracted. I am now rearing larve of 
C. limbalis Klug, which I dug from holes in a clay bank on the fif- 
teenth of April. They are easily kept in little tin boxes with damp 
earth, and feed readily on soft-bodied larvæ of wood-borers. The pupa 
is figured by Letzner and is represented as bearing on the fifth abdom- 
inal dorsal, two spines corresponding to the hooks on the same seg- 
ment in the larva.” 
Social Economy of the Hive Bee.—In a recent presidential 
address before the Biological Society of Washington, Dr. C. V. Riley 
described the social organization of the hive bee “Each bee,” he 
said, “ labors for the good of the commonwealth of which it is a mem- 
ber. Of them it might well be said : 
Saius rei public lex. 
It is the welfare of the colony which directs the actions of all, and not 
the will of the queen. Indeed, it would seem that the latter performs 
her important function—that of supplying the hive with eggs—only 
when the workers will it, their own condition of prosperity as regards. 
stores, or their anticipations of the future needs of the colony as re- 
gards population, causing them to supply the queen liberally with food 
rich in nitrogen—a partially digested substance, or a gland product, 
or perhaps, a mixture of both, which she alone cannot produce, yet 
without which any considerable production of eggs is an impossibility. 
. As Evans remarks: 
‘The prescient female rears her tender brood 
In strict proportion to the hoarded food.’ 
“ We must, then, credit the industrious and provident workers witl 
the chief influence in shaping the policy of the hive. They are the 
servum pecus—the living force—of the colony. And to the end that 
order and efficiency of effort may prevail, they have, we find, a marked 
division of labor. In the normal condition of the hive the young 
workers care for the brood—a labor which they take upon themselves 
* Can. Entomologist, Tune, 1894. 
"Insect Life, September, 1894. 
