53 
THE COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 
OCTOB'ER 21. 
admirable. Surely no one wlio observ^es this can for a 
moment suppose that the hee finds its way to its hive, or 
nest, mechanically, without fuh observation. 
Tlie males of tlie Apis Lftpidaria have precisely the same 
habits as the two last described species; these bees leave 
the nests a few days after they are hatched (guided much 
by weather), to become wanderers like their congeners. 
They voluntarily leave, and may be seen flying from thistle 
to thistle, in their lively liveries of yellow and red. 
Three years ago, wlien at Weymouth, I met a gentleman 
and his little boy, who were amusing themselves at a nest, 
killing the workers of this species with a shoe ; this was in 
September. 1 civilly asked him w'hy he killed them; his 
reply was, that they had some honey. The nest they had 
found was at the bottom of the clilf. I caught several of 
the workers with my naked hand, at which they were sur¬ 
prised. I assured them they were quite harmless, and 
convinced them th.at it was too late in the season to find the 
cells full; they became converts to my opinion, and desisted 
from destroying thei*. I have opened and examined 
hundreds of nests at the end of August, or beginning of 
September, and never found any honey. They appear to 
consume it always before the end of the summer; probably 
it is not wanted after the liatching is over, for as the wild 
bees are dormant through the winter they require none. 
We walked a few hundred yards together, and I caught 
several of the drones from the thistles, and he observed 
how dift’ereut they were in appearance, and wondered none 
had gone into the nest, nor come out while we were there. 
I told him the reason of this, and that they never returned. 
I w'as at Dieppe, in Normandy, in August, 184;5, where I 
remaineil a day-and-a-half, on purpose to e.xamine the wild 
bees in the country near. I found the same species exactly 
as in England. By far the majority were the Bed-tailed, 
and the A. Terreslris. I met a number of French school¬ 
boys amusing themselves in the cruel practice of killing 
the wild bees and extracting their honey-bags. They cer¬ 
tainly were adejits at catching them by the back ; but w’hen 
they saw me take several drones in my hand, and pull them 
by the legs and wings, they began to think I had some 
magical power, and it was with difliculty 1 could persuade 
them that the drones had no stings. 
There are several more species of the wild hee in Britain, 
varieties of those which I have described, but they have all 
the same habits as to the internal economy of the nest—the 
drones all leaving without the faculty of returning ; and 
each of the males of all the species make a round of visits, 
in fine weather, in the early part of the day, to particular 
spots ; and each species v.aries its flight in tliis respect on 
the ground in a manner that a little resembles the workers. 
I need scarcely add, that none of the honey cells of any of 
these bees are sealed like the hive bee. The AjAis Lupidaria 
is the handsomest of its congeners. 
(?'o be continued.) 
EOOKS AND PHEASANTS. 
Some correspondents have frequently asked for advice 
how to estalilish a rookery. The reply has been, to set 
rooks eggs under a magpie, wdio happens to have built in a 
favourable situation for a rookery. Assuming that you 
1 could get three or four pairs of mag]5ies to build in the 
I same spot near together, the plan would seem plausible, for 
! a pair of rooks will seldom stay; they join other neigh- 
I bouring flocks ; but three or four pairs (if thus hatched and 
; reared) would form a little community of their own, and 
probably might stay. But the difliculty is to get a magpie 
to feed a rook. I have known the experiment tried more 
than once, and the magpie has always deserted the rooks, 
and starved them, just as the black fine feathers appeared. 
A magpie is a most curious and sharp-sighted bird, and is 
not easily imposed on. Books, it is true, have a great 
attachment to the place of their nativity. Not farther back 
than twenty-five years ago, I remember that a pair of rooks 
; built annually, for several years, on a single tree, in the 
j Boyal Hotel yard, and another pair on a tree in I'imund- 
street, both places then being, as now, in the very centre of 
Birmingham, but they never staid after their young could 
fly. There are two rookeries near my present residence, 
and one is now altogether deserted in the wunter, and is 
used in the breeding season only, 1 presume for the sake of 
the old nests, and by those birds who were bred there. 
I have tried to rear young carrion-birds from their un¬ 
fledged state, and they generally have lost the use of their | 
legs when about fledged. I attiibute it to a mistake in 
feeding, or in the food itself. If I wished to try to raise a ' 
rookery, and liad a very suitable w'ood of trees, for they | 
must be high, and a good many of them together, I would 
get some rook’s-eggs, and set them under a bantam or light ; 
lien, and would try to rear the young by hand, in a place ' 
made amongst the trees, and I would turn them out as I 
would young pheasants or partridges, when they just began ; 
to peck; or the nests themselves might be robbed of their 
young when hatched, but you must recollect that you can j 
never tame any bird or animal half so well after it has once I 
opened its eyes upon, or been fed by its own parent, as you j 
can by never letting it know any fostering hand besides your j 
own; but the experiment of mailing a rookery is a very ! 
doubtful one. 
One word to sportsmen on rearing pheasants, the result , 
of experience. l>o not turn up your tame or caged hens in j 
your woods in the spring, to he eaten by foxes and vermin, I 
and avoid putting a tame or caged cock pheasant with your i 
hens to spoil their eggs through incompetency. Crop the | 
hens wings, and put them in a wired place, open at the top, | 
where the wild cock pheasants can have access to them. i 
Then sit off' the eggs under a hen, and rear in the usual way. 
A WORCESTEESUIKE MaN. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
We request that no one will write to the departmental writers of 
The Cottage Gaedenee. It gives them unjustifiable trouble and 
expense. All communications should be addressed “ To the Editor of 
the Cottage Gardener, 2, Amen Corner, Paternoster Hon’, London." 
Peeseeving Balsams by Cuttings (.1. B.).—There is nothing new 
in this. The difficulty is to keep the cuttings healthy over the winter in a 
cool greenhouse. Place them at the warmest end, and if even then the cold 
should seem too much for them, put the glass over them, under which 
you struck them. Give little water, but keep them from flagging. A 
little labour, and you will be rewarded with compact bulbs, very full of 
flowers. 
Calceolaeia Seed (.4 Suliseriber). —Your greenhouse would have 
been quite sufficient for this. No stove heat is required. September is 
the best month in the year to sow, &c., but as October will be pro¬ 
gressing before you see this, we would almost advise you to wait until 
February, then proceed as follows :—Fill a pot or pots half full with 
drainage, then with sw-eet soil, somevvhat rough, to within three-quarters- 
of-an-inch of the top, then fill with half-an-inch more of fine-sifted soil— 
if a little peat in it all the better—press it down, and then set the pot 
over head, for ten minutes, in a pail of water; take it out and let it drain 
for at least twenty-four hours ; then place the smallest quantity of fine 
sandy soil on the surface, press it gently and evenly down, and on this 
sow the seeds very thinly; then scatter over them a film of dry fine sand, 
and press again. Put a square of glass over the pot; on this glass place a 
little damp moss, and set it in a shady part of the greenhouse ; remove 
the moss as soon as the plants appear, and give them a high position, 
allowing the glass to remain until the plants are some size. They are 
impatient of water until they are pricked off; and to avoid watering, you 
will succeed better by plunging the pot into a larger one, and filling the 
space between wdtli moss, which you can keep moist. 
Gesneea Zebeina (T. M. 1F.1.—This being in bud, and looking 
healthy, will no doubt bloom, if you give it a temperature from 60° to 
70 °. \Ve frequently h<ave it in a glass case in summer, a greenhouse in 
autumn, and a plant stove the most of the winter. 
Fuchsias Grown in Pots on a .Single Stem (E. C. S.).—You 
have not told us your advantages. Keep them anywhere during the 
winter, free from frost, and just not dry, but moist rather than wet. Then 
cut down in spring, if you want a bush, or merely cut-in the side-shoots, 
and shorten the top one if you wish a Pyramid from a single stem, and 
repot when the shoots have broken a couple of inches, and grow slowly, 
if you want a robust h.abit. You may prune in a month, if you like, but 
we should prefer spring for getting some nice cuttings, if you wanted 
them. See some hints by Mr. Fish, to-day. 
Night-blowing Ceeeus (Lej/tonemis). —This is almost as hardy as 
the rest of the Cacti that w ill stand well in a greenhouse in winter, when 
kept dry, and in a state of rest. In such circumst.anccs, it would r’eiiuire 
the warmth of summer to open its blossom. As to whether Nmn- 
tanthus tongipes, jEschpnanthus javanirus, a.ml Bignonia insignis, are 
suitable stove plants for exhibition, we must reply that we do not know 
the last, and are not sure we know the second; but all the JEschn- 
nantlmses are good when well grown. The Nematanthns we have had 
