38 
NATURE NOTES 
this way, but merely turns it out of the hive to die of exposure and starvation. 
If mistaken I err in good company. Darwin, in the “Origin of Species,” 
speaking of the sting of the bee, says that the drones are “ultimately 
slaughtered by their industrious and sterile sisters.” In the “Descent of Man,” 
he states that the worker bees “kill their brother drones, and the queen bees 
kill their daughter queens.” I did not know that being kept for a single 
night on the “floor- board of the hive” could reduce a drone to a “half-dead 
condition.” It may be so, but such a rapid collapse, for want of a single 
meal, is very rare in the insect world. I doubt if it wants food at all in the 
middle of the night. Mr. Rawlins also asks to be allowed to differ from me 
when I say that “ the honey bee kills the drones by stinging them,” and gives as 
his reason “ that bees are much more careful about using their stings ” than I 
think. Sometimes I find them not nearly as careful as I should like. Will Mr. 
Webster and Mr. Rawlins kindly allow me to ask them for further light on the 
subject ? Can they produce authority to upset mine ? 
Market Weston, Thetford, Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
January 7, 1902. 
Clothes’ Moths (p. 19). — I am made to say that clothes’ moths are 
deservedly domestic “pets.” It should be pests. “ Under almost everything” 
should be indeed almost everything. “ Nature’s nightly scavengers” should be 
Nature’s mighty scavengers. 
Jajtuary 7, 1902. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
Injured Butterfly. — About three weeks ago I found a butterfly (peacock, 
I think) creeping on the floor of the room : it has lost the middle pair of legs, but 
otherwise seems uninjured, I put it under a glass shade, and as it persistently 
tried to climb up the slippery sides I gave it a wall of stiff net ; on this it holds 
and sits with closed wings. Every now and then I find it has shifted its quarters : 
to-day it had got down to the edge of the shade, which is a little r.aised to admit 
air, and it opened and shut its wings when I lifted the shade up. Am I cruel to 
it ? I thought it would die if let out of doors, or be injured if left to crawl in 
the room, and that perhaps it would hibernate under the shade in a dark corner. 
Will it go without food? Should I, if it lives, let it out of doors in April? 
Should I give it food, and if so, what? It would not taste a little damp sugar I 
offered it. Will the lost legs prevent it flying and getting its own living out of 
doors ? 
High House, Newbury, E. M. Beechey. 
January 7, 1902. 
[If the butterfly lives, by all means release it in April. It does not require 
food during the hibenjating season, and will probably be able to get any it may 
want in its short subsequent, life. — Ed. N.N.'\ 
Flies or Gnats? — Two summers ago we were driving along a road, half a 
mile or so from which was a row of elm trees, and above them we saw a thick, 
smoke-like cloud of gnats, which lay along the tops of all the trees, not close 
to them, but some few inches from the trees, so that the cloud of insects distinctly 
outlined the shape of the tree tops. As long as we were in sight of the trees they 
remained so, and might have been taken for smoke ha I they been over a build- 
ing. I have seen a column of gnats in a field also like smoke : they were certainly 
gnats not flies. The same alarm of fire took place at Dorchester, near here, not 
long ago, but I do not know whether they were gnats or flies, though I believe the 
former. Not having the caution of the V'icar of Aylesbuiy, those who saw them 
are said to have sent for the fire engine ! 
M. S. Younu. 
Double Peach Fruiting^.— We have had in our garden here for four and 
a half years a standard double flowering peach tree, which has hitherto produced 
a hard, green fruit about the size of a walnut. This year, however, the fruit grew 
very much larger, turned a yellowish colour, not at all red, but perfectly ripe and 
mellow, so that we enjoyed about twenty-five peaches of the ordinary flavour, 
though not of large size. Is not this rather unusual in a tree grown only for its 
