THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
39 
dress for the parts we were respectively 
about to perform. This done we made 
our appearance on the stage; I ad- 
vancing with a mass — some might think 
“ mess” a more appropriate or expressive 
term — of clay in one hand and bull’s-eye 
in the other, and my assistant with clay 
in each hand : this we hastily deposited 
upon the entrance to the nest, which we 
forthwith began to plaster up, but as 
“ There are more things in Heaven and earth, 
Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” 
so these insects had more places for 
“ Their exit3 and their entrances ” 
than we had dreamed of or had been able 
to discover: the consequenee was that, 
before we could succeed in cutting off all 
means of egress, some twenty or thirty 
individuals contrived to make their 
escape. Now, at this juncture, had we 
not been provided with armour, we 
should of course have bolted off and left 
the work at its very commencement, 
thus increasing the difficulties of capture 
whenever a fresh attempt should have 
been made; but feeling secure we stuck 
to our work till we had effectually closed 
up every aperture, and then quietly set 
about capturiug the individuals that had 
I so far made their escape; this we were 
soon enabled to do, as they continued to 
buzz round us or among the grass at our 
feet in an apparently bewildered state, 
making no attempt that we could dis- 
cover to attack us ; there is one thing, we 
took but little pains to ascertain the fact, 
it being a matter of perfect indifference 
to us whether they made the attempt or 
not. We “bagged” the lot, and then 
with a piece of stick about the size of 
one’s thumb proceeded to make an aper- 
ture through the clay we had plastered 
over the principal entrance, leaving the 
stick in the aperture by way of “ stopper ” 
till the dose of chloroform had been pre- 
pared, which was pushed in the instant 
the stick was withdrawn, and the aperture 
through which it had passed immediately 
closed up. 
In a few minutes the drug had done 
its work, as we were enabled to ascertain 
by repeatedly striking upon the trunk of 
the tree near the nest, the first few blows 
being answered by a prolonged growl 
from the imprisoned insects, but the 
responses grew more and more faint till 
at length they ceased entirely, and then 
putting off our armour we began to make 
active use of the mallet and chisel. 
From the decayed state of the tree the 
nest vvas soon reached, when the insects 
were found lying helplessly drunk under- 
neath it, except a few which were in the 
same state between or on the combs ; it 
was among the latter, immediately under 
the crown of the nest, the specimen of Vel- 
leius was discovered, the capture of which 
was recorded in my late notice (Int. viii. 
p. 188). 
It now only remained to “bag” the 
insects, to remove the nest to the interior 
of the glazed box, to convey it to its 
place of destination, to fix it when there 
in the place prepared for it, to suspend 
the nest properly inside it, to place food 
and building materials within it, and 
then to introduce the colony, which con- 
sisted of about one hundred individuals’ 
all of which was accomplished without 
difficulty or the occurrence of any acci- 
dent. The insects, which had recovered 
from the effects of the chloroform by the 
time the box was ready, were, partly by 
persuasion and partly by force, passed 
into it through an aperture made for the 
purpose, and which was afterwards closed 
with a cork. The aperture by which they 
were allowed to pass out, through an 
