To bee-keepers—and to bees perhaps still more so—these terrible buccaneer flies are especially obnoxious. Poised in air, in the neighbourhood of some hive, they watch the issuing and returning stream, and, making swift choice of a victim, sweep, like the wingéd furies that they are, upon him. There is a sharp, shrilly sound, as the bee’s wings vibrate, for a moment, more rapidly, then the fatal legs wrap her round, and, pressed tightly to the oppressor’s body, she is borne to some shrub or flower, in the shade or pleasant fragrance of which the juices of her body are sucked out, through a hole specially made to allow of their passage. When nothing remains but the empty shell, the fly drops this, and returns to the scene of its labours. Through all the hot sunny hours these raids are continued, till hundreds of empty bee-shells strew the ground. As the sun declines the sport flags and gradually ceases, but it begins again the following morning as merrily as ever. America seems to be the home _par excellence_ of these flies, but they are represented, under various forms, in many parts of the world. The United States has been accorded its fair share of them, and according to their numbers, each season, the labours of the bee-farmer are rewarded or otherwise. So much is this the case that the fact that “during certain seasons, in a bee-raising district of New York, not a single hive threw off a swarm”[17] has been attributed to this cause alone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: A BUCCANEER FLY, AND A LEAF-RESEMBLING INSECT.] Poised in the air, the buccaneer fly selects its victim from the bees issuing from a hive, pounces on it like a winged fury, and kills its hapless prey. The insect depicted beneath is protected from its enemies by its strange resemblance to a dead leaf.