PARASITIC BEES. 285 



If the proverbial simile "as busy as a Bee^^ be 

 fully justified by the habits of those with which 

 we have already become acquainted, there are some 

 members of this tribe which are as conspicuous for 

 their idleness as the others for their ingenious indus- 

 try. These indolent gentry apparently lead a most 

 agreeable life_, their whole business consisting in 

 flying about in the warm rays of the sun, occasionally 

 visiting a flower in search of a little nourishment; 

 when the time comes for them to provide for their 

 offspring, instead of undergoing the plebeian labour 

 of excavating and storing a nest for themselves, they 

 drop airily down upon some bank where their indus- 

 trious brethren have been busily at work, and quietly 

 slipping into the nests in the absence of the rightful 

 owners, deposit their eggs upon the mass of food laid 

 up by the latter for their own progeny. A remarkable 

 circumstance connected with this parasitism is, that 

 although the parasites are very different in appear- 

 ance from the Bees whose nests they usurp, the latter 

 manifest no displeasure at their presence, and the 

 Bees and their parasites may be seen flying about 

 over the same bank in the most friendly manner; 

 nay, Mr. Smith tells us, that the female of the Long- 

 horned Bee {Eucera longicornis) , on finding one of 

 the parasitic Bees in her burrow, will fly off" again to 

 a little distance, and wait until the intruder has 

 come out. Mr. Smith thinks, from his having fre- 

 quently observed the parasitic Bees with pellets of 

 earth or clay attached to their posterior tibise, that 

 after depositing their e^^ they close up the cell in 

 I which it is placed. 



The commonest and best-known of these Cuckoo- 

 Bees, as they are called, are the numerous species of 



