FOREIGN BEES. 
283 
in the autumn of the year 1830, by Dr. T. B. Wil- 
son, at the suggestion of his friend Mr. R. Gunter of 
Earl’s Court, brought from London in a wire case. 
It arrived in safety, and the bees swarmed several 
times the first year ; and in the True Colonist (a 
Hobart-Town newspaper) of February 14th 1835, 
it is stated that a hive descended from Dr. Wilson’s, 
belonging to a gentleman in the neighbourhood of 
Hobart-Town, had already swarmed eighteen times !’’ 
Major Mitchell states, in his recently published 
account of his expedition into the interior of Australia, 
that he sometimes met with bees in great plenty, and 
some of them were not a little curious in their habits. 
Although his rifle was in frequent use, he one day 
found that a quantity of wax and honey had been 
deposited in the barrel, and also in the hollow part 
of the ramrod ! He had previously noticed a bee 
occasionally entering the barrel, and it now appeared 
that wax and honey had been lodged immediately 
above the charge to the depth of about two inches. 
The bee which he most frequently observed about 
his tent, and which was probably the species that 
selected this perilous depository, was as large as the 
English bee, and had a sting. “ We were now,” lie 
says, in another part of his interesting work, “ in a 
‘ land flowing with milk and honey for the natives 
with their new tomahawks extracted it in abundance 
from the hollow branches of the trees, and it seemed 
that, in the season, they could find it almost every- 
where. To such inexpert clowns, as they probably 
