8 
NATURE NOTES 
owl to a market gardener who cultivates one of the largest gardens about 
Mortlake, and he told me that some of his men brought to him a short time since 
a beautiful owl they had caught in a hole in the trunk of a tree growing near to 
his house. He kept the bird till night and then let it free. He said he often 
heard the hoot of owls at night. 
Kew, December 1901. Ina Mellor. 
Wasps and Bees. — If a “ Rugby Selbornian ” will closely observe a wasp 
attacking a blue-bottle fly he will find that although the wasp curls its abdomen 
round as though in the act of stinging, it rarely inserts the sting into the fly. I 
am. only alluding to Vespa vulgaris. Wasps, as a rule, kill flies by simply cutting 
them to pieces ; that is, when the fly is too large for them to carry. They first, 
as a rule, chop off the wings, and then the other parts of the body. If E. T. 
Daubeny will take a wasp in one hand, between finger and thumb, and a blue- 
bottle fly in the other, and bring them together, thus making the wasp actually 
sting the fly, the latter’s death will be almost instantaneous. 
I must negative Mr. E. T. Daubeny’s remarks re bees killing drones of 
Apis mellifica by stinging them. The pose of the worker bee when getting rid of 
the drones is exactly that of the wasp when seizing a fly, and would lead a 
casual observer to suppose that the sting was in.serted : this is not so. The 
drones are simply turned out of the hive by the worker bees to die of starvation 
and exposure : they are very delicate and cannot stand exposure or scarcity of 
food. One will frequently find, at evening during early autumn, the drones in 
masses on the floor board of the hive, they having been driven from off the combs 
by the workers and left there to starve during the night. The next day they are 
dragged forth in a half-dead condition and thrown outside to finish them. Drones 
are common to all hives, and we shall find in an apiary, if there is a queenless 
stock, this latter particular colony full of drones which have been refused admis- 
sion or have been thrown out, providing they are not too far gone to fly, from the 
other hives. If the bees killed these drones by stinging we should, of course, 
not find them in the queenless colony : this latter description of colony is always 
willing to accept drones. Again, I must quote the old bee-man’s adage, “bees 
do nothing invariably.” I am only stating the rule. W. B. Wei!STEr. 
Rinfield, Berks. (Author of the “ Book of Beekeeping,” &c.) 
Wasps. — I secured this summer, near the wateifall at Llanberis, a fine 
specimen nest of Vespa norvegiea. I had just observed a dragon-fly settle on some 
foliage near, with a good-sized fly in its mouth, and was able to walk tight up to 
it, so seriously occupied was it over its meal, which took a good minute to dispose 
of, its jaws working all the time like a stone-crusher until the last of the poor fly 
vanished ; then in a moment, as if it became suddenly con.scious of my presence, 
darted off. As soon as my attention was diverted I found I was close up to the 
wasp’s nest, and though so close it was only the shape that caught my eye ; the 
colour harmonised exactly with the slate-rock which formed the background. 
As I had been looking out for such a prize for years I determined to secure it, 
which I was able to do without a sting, though I had to cut it right out of a 
bramble bush. 1 got it down to the hotel and home and mounted without mishap. 
I found just at the same time, in the greenhouse, the nest of the solitary wasp, 
and I have the two together in the same case, a perfect contrast as to size and 
colour. Mr. Daubeny must allow one to differ with him when he says, as he does 
on page 231, under Wasps, “ The honey bee kills off thedrones by stinging them.” 
My experience is that bees are much more careful about using their slings 
than he evidently thinks. All they do to the poor unfortunate drone is to hustle 
him. 
Dyserth Road, Rhyl. E. L. Rawlins. 
The Winter Moths. — These little creatures appear to be unusually plentiful 
this winter on all mild evenings, as they c.annot travel in frosty nights, and con- 
.sequently are not on the trees. If this is general it will cause much damage on 
fruit trees next spring and summer, as each female is cap.-ible of producing 150 to 
200 caterpillars. I have preserved a few hundreds of females in gla.ss jars in 
which they have laid thousands of tiny green eggs which will gradually turn brown 
and remain .so through the winter until April, when they hatch into caterpillars 
just in time for the summer migratory birds on their arrival in our orchards and 
gardens. 
Ast'ivood Bank. 
J. IIIAM. 
