76 NATURE NOTES 
Chameleon’s Egg. — The enclosed egg, laid by a chameleon at Forest 
Gate, may interest you. 
The little creature, who is a great pet, laid a couple, one of which was cracked 
in falling. The lady owner tells me that her chameleon is the only survivor 
among a great number brought her from Spain, and that owing to the great 
mortality she has now begged her friend to import no more. She has been able, 
however, to keep her favourite alive and happy. It sleeps in a warm basket, takes 
meal-worms for its food, and drinks a drop or two of tepid water, daily. In this 
way it has passed through the winter, the basket being placed on a hot water 
bottle during severe times. It is on excellent terms with its human friend, and 
appears to favour sitting on her head or hand to any other position, when out for 
exercise on the table. 
I may add that a tame chameleon kept by some friends with whom I was in 
the habit of staying, obviously knew those who fed and cared for it from strangers : 
it would turn blackish, and even hiss at the latter ; while, when I took it into 
the garden it at once contentedly curled its tail round one finger, and leered up 
in the oddest way as if he knew my face. I then took it the round of the goose- 
berry bushes, when it darted its wonderful tongue at every moving insect that it 
saw, butterflies included. After munching and “making faces” awhile, it 
ejected the wings and tough bits. A most favourite place for this little fellow was 
the middle of a sunflower, to the colour of which it attempted to change. To 
this -it’.would cling and would eat the bees which came for honey, apparently 
regarding their sting as a sort of condiment ; say, a pinch of pepper. Poor 
“Jimmy ” as he was called, wandered off one sunny day and was seen no more. 
Mctrch 19, 1903. Edith Carrington. 
[The egg, which was at first, Miss Carrington says, firm, hard, and white, is 
now orange and shrunken laterally. It is 15 millimetres in length and like other 
reptilian eggs, tapers equally towards both ends. It was laid in October. — Ed. 
n.n . ;] 
Bees Stinging Drones. — Last year there was a discussion in your 
pages as to whether the worker bee killed the drone by stinging. Kirby and 
Spence, in their “ Introduction to Entomology,” tell us that M. Huber placed 
some hives on plates of glass in order to make observations on the point ; and 
that he watched the workers in the act of seizing the drones “ by their antennte, 
their legs, and their wings, and killing them by violent strokes of their sting, 
which they generally inserted between the segments of the abdomen. The 
moment this fearful weapon entered their body the poor helpless creatures 
expanded their wings and expired. After this, as if fearful that they' were not 
sufficiently despatched, the bees repeated their strokes, so that they often found 
it difficult to extricate the sting .... Not content with destroying those 
that were in the perfect state, they attacked also all such male pupa- as were left 
in their cells, and then dragging them forth, sucked the fluid from their bodies 
and cast them out of the hive.” 
Market Weston , Thetford , Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
February 7, 1903. 
The Cinnabar Moth.— The caterpillars of the Cinnabar moth (Calliviorpha 
/acobaa) do good service in checking the spread of the ragwort or ragweed ( Senecio 
facobcea ), on which they feed. It is not uncommon to see in field after field all 
the plants of this noxious weed destroyed by these useful insects. As the gaudy 
caterpillars make no attempt at concealing themselves, and attract attention at a 
distance, they would soon be exterminated were they preyed upon by birds. 
Most caterpillars of conspicuous colour that expose themselves to view are 
protected by being so nauseous that no insect-eating birds will touch them. The 
Cinnabar moth caterpillars are thus guarded, and it is improbable that rooks, or 
even the London sparrow himself, who is equal to almost anything, would dare to 
eat them. The moth is rarely found in Scotland, in parts of which the ragwort 
is a great nuisance in spite of its seeds being a favourite food of many birds. In 
“Wild Sports of the Highlands” St.John says, “ Every pigeon’s crop he examined 
was crammed as full as could possibly be of the seeds of two of the worst weeds 
in the country, the wild mustard and the ragweed, which- they had found 
remaining on the surface of the ground, these plants ripening and dropping their 
