Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 17.pdf/121

 HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP.

among the fragmentary remains of Palaeozoic time, impossible of identification. I think the earliest evidence of the presence of Hymenopterous insects in the British Isles is found in the deposits of the middle Eocene age, and with them also is found a largely extended flora, consistent with the general law of harmony, as flowers developed Antho- philae appeared, and thus we find presumptive evidence of the bee in Britain. But where was braula? Perhaps he had not yet elected to possess terrestrial trachea.

According to my own observations, and these are corroborated by others, the London clay, even at its base, is strewn with organisms far less favourable for preservation than the chito-coriacious skins of Braula caeca. It is true that, geologically considered, the gap between these periods is incalculably great, but observation shows that, conditions being present, time is no preventative of the preservative process, so that, analogically, there seems no reason for the exclusion of the epizoa during these

Fig. 72.—Braula caeca, doreal aspect (magnified).

remote periods of the world's history. Nor is the presence of the palaeontological insectivora any reason for the total absence of palaeontological parasitica.

In passing from pre-historic to historic time to the order of creation as it now exists, we find the bee an item of vast commercial importance, and of no less scientific interest, attracting the attention of men, the most learned of their day, whose work now forms the basis of all our studies. The most ancient of historic writers tell how well the bees was known and how much studied early in man's history on earth; while Philiseus, Aristomachus, Aristotle, and others, all naturalists of high repute, were great observers, not only of the Hymenoptera, but of Mellifica in particular, while the family may be found basking and flitting form line to line in the beautiful effusions of Virgil and Dryden. Were not those keen men aware that the bee was not exempt from those common ills to which the whole insect population were then, and still are, liable? But though braula is not mentioned, the omission is no proof of absence in creation.

And nearer even still, was Swammerdam, and early Westwood, and all his followers, who take us band two hundred years, and Huber and his devoted friend—his indefatigable and literary son— his scientific wife, to each of whome we also owe so much of what we know of bees. Did they know braula? otherwise their observations were incomplete and untrustworthy. Nor can we think the rustic wife that tends her bees with assiduity, who knows all she knows form observation—not from books— does not know braula. If so, her entomology is little better than her neighbours, but not knowing braula's name, she calls it "louse."

The cultivated bee of Britain is not the same as the domesticated in certain parts of Italy, so that braula being found with us, and among the Germans, as we are told, if Italy were its birthplace, its predilection cannot be exclusive. The probability, therefore is, that the parasite is far more greatly distributed than has been supposed, and its acclimatisation may far precede our own most ancient history.

Few men have obtained that influence over the

Fig. 73.—Tarsus of Braula (magnified).

Fig. 74.—Rudimentary tropi and gula of Braula (magnified).

bee that was possessed by Wildman, and fewer still perhaps would dare to venture on his familiarities, seeing the insect's not unfrequent antipathy to certain individuals, or even to the same individual under varied conditions. Why this, the bee best knows.

Braula, as being parasitic in common with members of the family to which it is allied, derives its support from the juices of living animals, and we know when death occurs in the higher animals, important changes take place in the more delicate tissues, and in the nutrient vital fluids in particular, so that their parasites, if present, instinctively depart in search of more suitable conditions. There is no departure from this natural law.

At a first glance, one is struck with the great resemblance of Braula caeca, Mitzich (B. Caeca, Otto) to the sheep tick (Melophila ovina, Mitzich, Melophagus, Latr.). Their difference, however, soon becomes apparent when comapred, in respect of Lice (Pediculida), there is no affinity. Like ovina and some members of the Pulicidae, the antennae are contained in eye-like