DASYGASTRES CARDER-BEE 



45 



seems to have supposed that the insect was carrying the stone 

 as ballast to keep itself from being blown away. 



The bees of the genus Anthidium are known to possess the 

 habit of making nests of wool or cotton, that they obtain from 

 plants growing at hand. We 

 have one species of this genus 

 of bees in Britain ; it some- 

 times may be seen at work in 

 the grounds of our Museum 

 at Cambridge : it is referred 

 to by Gilbert White, who 

 says of it, in his History 

 of Selborne : " There is a sort 

 of wild bee frequenting the 

 garden-campion for the sake 

 of its tomentum, which prob- 

 ably it turns to some purpose 

 in the business of nidification. 

 It is very pleasant to see with 

 what address it strips off the 

 pubes, running from the top 

 to the bottom of a branch, 

 and shaving it bare with the 

 dexterity of a hoop -shaver. 

 When it has got a bundle, 

 almost as large as itself, it flies 

 away, holding it secure between its chin and its fore legs." 

 The species of this genus are remarkable as forming a con- 

 spicuous exception to the rule that in bees the female is 

 larger than the male. The species of Anthidium do not form 

 burrows for themselves, but either take advantage of suitable 

 cavities formed by other Insects in wood, or take possession of 

 deserted nests of other bees or even empty snail-shells. The 

 workers in cotton, of which our British species A. manicatum is 

 one, line the selected receptacle with a beautiful network of 

 cotton or wool, and inside this place a finer layer of the material, 

 to which is added some sort of cement that prevents the honied 

 mass stored by the bees in this receptacle from passing out of it. 

 A. diadema, one of the species that form nests in hollow sterns, 

 has been specially observed by Fabre ; it will take the cotton for 



FIG. 20. Anthidium manicatum, Carder 

 bee. A, Male ; B, female. 



