110 
BRITISH BEES. 
We find the bees are not at all exempted from this 
prevailing condition. They have many enemies and 
parasites of remarkably differing organization. They 
are attacked by many kinds of birds, among which the 
Merops Apiaster (or bee-eater) is conspicuous. All 
the swallow tribe prey upon them, as do the shrikes and 
some of the soft-billed small birds, and also many small 
quadrupeds when they can find the opportunity. Wasps 
also attack them, but they do not often get entangled 
in spiders’ nets, being generally too strong for the re¬ 
tention of its meshes, but I have seen a Bombus en¬ 
veloped in a tangle of its wonderful filament. 
The wild bees’ parasites are of two kinds, personal, 
and such which, like the young of cuckoos, live at the 
expense of the offspring. The personal parasites are 
again of two kinds, for bees are infested with several 
kinds of Acari , and once I found a Bombus upon the 
ground in Coombe Wood so swarming with the Acarus 
that it lay hopelessly helpless until I threw it into a 
pool of water, when its attaches were washed away. But 
the poor bee seemed so prostrated by their attack, that 
even when freed from them it had not energy to fly, and 
having landed it I left it to the kindly nursing of nature. 
A litlle yellow hexapod larva sometimes also infests 
the wild bees in great numbers, running over and about 
them with great activity. I have never followed these to 
their development, but they are said to be the larvae of 
Meloe pr o scarab ecus , a conspicuously large coleopterous 
insect. The assertion has produced much discussion; 
and I believe the larva has been bred to the imago, and 
consequently it has been proved that it is the larva of 
that insect. But that it should be parasitical upon so 
small a creature, and that numbers should infest it for 
