THEODORE H. PRISON 141 



a piece containing about eight cubic inclies of the hard, dry 

 clay. This was on May 31, 1919. In a portion of this clay 

 lump, containing two and one-half cubic inches of soil, I found 

 eleven cells containing pupae of this bee. If the entire bank 

 supported such a proportion it would have a total of one hundred 

 and four thousand, two hundred and seventy-four cells. Such 

 was not the case, however, for the burrows were most abundant 

 on the upper part and on the most precipitous side. In 1921 

 the bees were harder pushed for desirable locations, for many 

 made their burrows all over one end and some even took posses- 

 sion of the fiat top surface. In many places the burrows and 

 cells went back into the clay bank ten or twelve inches. A con- 

 servative estimate would indicate that in summer this Antho- 

 phora bank harbored about five thousand cells. A marked gre- 

 gariousness is therefore exhibited by these so-called solitary 

 bees. The same tendency towards a social type of existence 

 characterizes the habits of Anthophora stanfordiana. Kellogg 

 mentions a "great colony" of these bees and Nininger says 

 that one colony of this same species occupied an area "extend- 

 ing over several square rods" and that it contained several 

 thousand bees, while a second community was but "a small 

 aggregation." Judging by Say's account of the habits of En- 

 technia taurea, as he observed them in Indiana, and by what I 

 have noted in Illinois, these bees also like to nest close together. 

 The colony of this latter species that I found at White Heath, 

 lUinois, was composed of not over three hundred cells. Nichols 

 says that Emphor fuscojubatus made numerous nest openings in 

 the soil by the side of the road for a distance of about "one 

 eighth of a mile." There is nothing in her account to indicate 

 that these bees ever formed such concentrated colonies. Gross- 

 beck, however, found several colonies of this same species of 

 bee scattered short distances from one another, the largest hav- 

 ing in the neighborhood of seventy bees, and the smallest eight 

 to twelve bees each. The fact that Clisodon tenninalis burrows 

 in wood much in the manner of Xylocopa suggests that verj' 

 large colonies are a rarity if they ever occur. It was once my 

 fortune to rear adults of Melissodes bimaculata Lepeletier from 

 cocoons found after they had been exposed by plowing. Ap- 

 parently this species of Eucerine bee has habits comparable 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC, XLVIII. 



