It is often caught on the golden rod. This plant, from its very color, tends to conceal the hug, and from the very character of the plant--being attractive as a honey plant to bees--the slow bug is enabled to catch the spry and active honey-bee. As Prof. Uhler well says of the "stinging-bug": "It is very useful in destroying caterpillars and other vegetable-feeding insects, but is not very discriminating in its tastes, and would as soon seize the useful honey-bee as the pernicious saw-fly." And he might have added that it is equally indifferent to the virtues of our friendly insects like the parasitic and predaceous species. We note, then, that this bug is not wholly evil, and as its destruction would be well-nigh impossible, for it is as widely scattered as are the flowers in which it lurks, we may well rest its case, at least until its destructiveness becomes more serious than at present. * * * * * [Illustration: Fig. 126.] [Illustration: Fig. 127.] THE SOUTHERN BEE-KILLERS. _Mallophora orcina and Mallophora bomboides._ I have received from several of our enterprising bee-keepers of the South--Tennessee, Georgia and Florida--the above insects, with the information that they dart forth from some convenient perch, and with swift and sure aim, grasp a bee, bear it to some bush, when they leisurely suck out all but the mere crust, and cast away the remains. The bee which is thus victimized, is readily known by the small hole in the back, through which the juices were pumped out. The insects plainly belong to the family Asilidæ, the same that includes the Missouri bee-killer, _Asilus Missouriensis_, the Nebraska bee-killer, _Promachus bastardi_, and other predatory insects, several of which, I regret to say, have the same evil habit of killing and devouring our friends of the hive. The characters of this family, as given by Loew, one of the greatest authorities on Diptera, or two-winged flies, are prolonged basal cells of the wings, third longitudinal vein bifurcate, third joint of antenna simple, under lip forming a horny sheath, empodium, a projection below and beneath the claws (Fig. 131, _c_), a horny bristle. [Illustration: Fig. 128.] [Illustration: Fig. 131.] The insects in question belong to Loew's third group, Asilina, as the antennæ end in a bristle (Fig. 128), while the second longitudinal vein of the wing (Fig. 129, _b_) runs into the first (Fig. 129, _a_). The genus is _Mallophora_. The venation of the wings much resembles that of the genus _Promachus_, the same that contains the Nebraska bee-killer, though the form of these insects is very different. The Nebraska bee-killer is long and slim like the _Asilus Missouriensis_ (see Fig. 108), while the one in question is much like the neuter bumble-bee in form.