March, igoi.] SmITH : On SoME DlGGER BeES. 29 



NOTES ON SOME DIGGER BEES— I. 



By John B. Smith, Sc.D. 



One of the most interesting collecting regions that I have ever 

 found is in the New Jersey Pines. At first sight there is nothing very 

 attractive about them — mostly sand, covered by oak scrub or briars, 

 fields or opens of Indian grass, stunted pines, then a swamp more or 

 less cedar covered, from which runs a little stream through a lowland 

 which is very apt to be in cranberries. The impression gained from 

 the car windows riding to Atlantic City, Cape May or other shore re- 

 sorts, from New York or Philadelphia, is of dreary desolation, intense 

 heat in summer, flocks of mosquitoes and general hopelessness. Yet 

 this impression is utterly erroneous. There is more difference in level 

 than first appears and, while there are no high hills, there is fall enough 

 for rapid streams affording water power for numerous mills — many of 

 them now dropping to pieces and disused. There are really many 

 very pretty bits of quiet landscape and here and there a large pond 

 courteously dubbed a " lake " affords fishing and even rowing. Lake- 

 wood and BrownsMills are Pine resorts not unknown to the fashionable 

 world, but they are by no means the best points in the region. To 

 the naturalist this area is of never-failing interest. The flora which 

 at first seems so uniform is really very rich and varied ; while as to 

 insects the records in my Catalogue of the species found in New Jersey 

 will indicate something of the faunal wealth. 



Years ago I became acquainted with Mr. J. Turner Brakeley, of 

 Bordentown, N. J., who spends each season, a large portion of his 

 time in the pines, in Ocean County. There are cranberry bogs there 

 and in the course of my studies on the insects injuring this crop I spent 

 some time at Lahaway, as Mr. Brakeley' s place is called. This is well 

 in the pines, several miles from any railroad, and two miles or more 

 from the nearest group of houses dignified by the name of village — 

 Prospertown, in which nobody prospers. 



Mr. Brakeley knows the pines and their inhabitants; knows much 

 of botany and something of entomology ; but better than all, he has 

 the faculty of close observation. Almost every year for a long time 

 past I have managed to spend a few days with him, alone with nature 

 — he keeps bachelor's hall — and on our tramps we frequently discussed 



