THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 41 
Early in April I made some observations on bees 
which I found in the evening camped in cosmos blossoms. 
Thirteen bees were collected, and, with the blossoms, 
placed under a bell-jar. In the morning three bees were 
dead, and the remainder displayed varying degrees of 
activity. The lot were then placed in the sun in open 
air. All the living bees at once began to liven up and 
brush their heads and bodies, and within a few minutes 
one after another flew away in the direction of the hives. 
After about twenty minutes, nine had flown and one re- 
mained; this one, though left in the sun, died in a few 
hours. Thus nine flew off and four died. 
Next evening another lot of twelve were taken on 
cosmos blossoms as before, placed under bell-jar, and 
kept under observation. In the morning one was dead 
and the others more or less lively. By noon, half of the 
bees were very lively, making repeated attempts to fly 
away; One more was dead, and the remainder sluggish. 
At 2 p.m. four more had died, two were sluggish, and 
four fairly lively. After another two hours one was still 
lively and trying to fly off, five sluggish, and a total of 
six dead. By next morning four had died, while the re- 
maining two were fairly lively. These were placed in the: 
sun, but died during the day. : 
From this it appears that bees captured while camp- 
ing out in the evening, are much more tolerant of con- . 
finement than those taken while at work amongst the 
flowers or leaving the hive for their collecting grounds. 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
BUTTERFLIES AND CoLtour—At Pennant Hills 
on the 24th March, I noticed an __ interesting 
case of colour attraction for a butterfly. A 
lady was standing talking to two other people 
on the footpath opposite my house. She’ was wear- 
ing a plain brown straw hat, fixed with a hat-pin, having a 
light-blue porcelain knob about half an inch in diameter. 
A butterfly, Papilio sarpedon, kept flying about the knob 
as if fascinated, and followed the lady closely when she 
went up the footpath to the house, only flying away when 
the lady entered the house. I watched it for quite five 
