28 HUNTING AMONG THE 



time usually allotted to such papers, and although the next subject 

 is, if anything, still more interesting, you will perhaps think it 

 is better to leave it for a future occasion. 



I will, however, with your permission, just touch briefly on 

 three special exhibits which I have brought with me this evening, 

 and which I think will be sufficient to show you how interesting is 

 the subject, and what wonders there are around us of which many 

 in their ordinary life have no conception. 



I will first take the case of Osmia rufa, the mason bee. I 

 have between thirty and forty natural hives or dwellings of this 

 pretty httle insect in the front of my house. It burrows a long 

 tunnel into the mortar six to ten inches long, the diameter being 

 so small that there is only just room for this little bee to squeeze 

 itself in. It then commences to form a small cell at the end of 

 this passage, which it fills with honey and pollen, and after deposit- 

 ing an egg therein, it seals up the end, and begins another cell. 

 This it repeats until the tunnel is nearly filled. It then fills up 

 the aperture with mortar, sticks, small stones, wool, or even small 

 pieces of string, and plasters over the entrance with a sort of 

 cement, to keep its young safe until next spring; the young 

 comes out in a few days, and at once commences eating the honey 

 and pollen, but its life is not always secure. There is a beautiful 

 little insect, named Chrysis ignita, which you will generally find 

 watching outside these holes, and which, as soon as Oswia rufa 

 has finished her cell and flown away to gather fresh honey and 

 pollen for the next cell, enters the tunnel and deposits her egg also 

 in the cell. The larva of the Chrysis hatches out in a few days, 

 and feeds either on the honey and pollen or on the larva of Osmia 

 rufa, in the same way as the larvse of the IchneiimonidcB live on 

 the bodies of those of Lepidoptera. I have had some difficulty 

 in getting any information on this head, but the general idea 

 among authorities on Hymenoptera seems to be that the Chrysidce 

 do not follow the Ic/me2imonidce, but feed on the honey instead of 

 on the larva of Osmia rufa. I have, however, found the empty 

 skin of a full-grown larva of Osmia rufa in its cell with the cell 

 punctured evidently by a Chrysis, which would seem to prove that 

 cither the larva of the Chrysis lived in the body of the bee, or had 

 eaten it up after the honey and pollen had been finished ; the 



