104 REVIEWS. 



escape? when burrowing in a sand-bank the same difficulty presents itself; when 

 Chelostoma florisomnis avails itself of the tube of a straw or reed, how is the 

 insect to pass the first knot which opposes its escape? Such are the results of 

 theoretical conclusions ; let us seek for knowledge in the careful investigation of 

 the operations of nature. 



"A bee is observed to alight on an upright post, or other wood suitable for its 

 purposes ; she commences the formation of her tunnel not by excavating down- 

 wards, as she would be incommoded by the dust and rubbish which she removes 

 no, she works upwards, and so avoids such an inconvenience. When she has pro- 

 ceeded to the length required, she proceeds in a horizontal direction to the outside 

 of the post, and now her operations are continued downwards; she constructs a 

 cell near the bottom of the tube, a second, and a third, and so on to the required 

 number; the larvae, when full fed, have their heads turned upwards; the bees 

 which arrive at their perfect condition or, rather, those which are first anxious 

 to escape into day are two or three in the upper cells ; these are males ; the 

 females are usually ten or twelve days later. This is the history of every wood- 

 boring bee which I have bred, and I have reared broods of nearly every species 

 indigenous to the country. I have observed in the instance of Chelostoma floris- 

 omnis, that whilst one bee was carrying on her operations as detailed above, ano- 

 ther was tunneling in a horizontal rail ; here no lower opening was required, the 

 bee pushed the chips out at the entrance, and as no outlet was necessary at the 

 end of the tunnel, the bee in this case made none. 



"There is still another species of this genus whose habits are so different to the 

 rest, that our admiration of the ingenuity of these bees is greatly increased when 

 we consider its curious details, and reflect upon the degree of care and foresight 

 exhibited by the provident parent this is the Osmia parietina, a bee only found in 

 the northern parts of this country. This species selects the underside of a slate or 

 stone lying on the ground, and having a hollow space beneath; to the stone the 

 bee attaches the little bails of pollen. A stone of this kind was found at Glen 

 Almond, Perthshire, on the Grampians, 800 feet above the level of the sea, by Mr. 

 J. Robertson, who, on turning it up, observed a mass of cocoons ; although he was 

 not much acquainted with entomology, still he knew them to be the production of 

 some insect; he presented the stone to the British Museum, and it was placed in 

 my hands for observation. The size of the stone was ten inches by six ; the num- 

 ber of cocoons attached to it two hundred and thirty. When first discovered, 

 about one-third of them were empty ; this was in the month of November. In the 

 beginning of the following March, a few males made their appearance, and shortly 

 afterwards some females ; they continued to come forth occasionally until the end 

 of June; at this time there remained thirty-five undeveloped cocoons; on opening 

 one or two of them, they proved to contain active larva? ; these I carefully closed, 

 and left the whole undisturbed until the following April, at which time, on exami- 

 nation, they proved to be still in the larva state ; but at the end of May they 

 changed to pupae, and about the end of June beytin to come forth perfect insects. 

 This, then, was the result a portion of a deposit of ejrgs made in 1849 had been 

 three years in arriving at maturity : when found, one-third were developed ; the 

 following year a second brood came forth, and whilst in my possession a third. In 

 the first instance, the whole deposit was subject to the same influences, and had 

 produced larva? ; what was the cause of the retarded development of the rest, it 

 were vain to attempt to determine." 



We cannot but respect the modesty that has left untouched those higher 

 problems of system and philosophy, on which the undying fame of the 

 " Monographia Apum Anglic" mainly rests. After the lapse of more than 

 half a century, and when the peaceful and honoured age of the Patriarch 

 of Entomology in Britain has sunk into the grave (the evening that precedes 

 sunrise), the groups, and the disposition of them which he has indicated, 

 still form the groundwork for the arrangement of these families ; while the 



