36 HYMENQPTERA. 



the subject, was so fraught with disappointment, was so 

 calculated to raise in our minds certain misgivings of a lons;- 

 cherished belief, that we even now recall the circumstance to 

 mind with a sort of melancholy unwillingness. Sitting one 

 day, looking out of the open window of our parlour, which 

 overlooked the Channel at Deal, we were suddenly aroused 

 from our afternoon's rest, by observing a little bee alight on 

 the flower of a scarlet Geranium which adorned the window- 

 sill; with the well-known adroitness of a leaf-cutter bee it 

 quickly disengaged a circular piece from one of the scarlet 

 petals. Antliocopa papaveris ! we exclaimed, and were 

 outside in front of the window in a moment, net in hand ; in 

 a few minutes a bee again alighted on the Geranium, it was 

 captured — Antliocopa ! — no — Megachile argentata. 



Now we have no wish, in fact we cannot — will not — give 

 up our firm conviction and belief, — that there once existed a 

 veritable Ali Baba, — that Jack ascended the bean-stalk,— or 

 that Robinson Crusoe lived in his desolate island and could 

 not make a wheelbarrow ; neither can we allow the circum- 

 stance above recorded, to shake our belief in there being a 

 species of leaf-cutter bee, which always lines its subterranean 

 chambers with the petals of the scarlet poppy. We have 

 hitherto regarded the little creature as a sort of regal up- 

 holsterer, who prepared gorgeous dwellings for its young- 

 brood ; this belief was instilled into our minds on reading 

 Hennie's chapter on the Upholsterer-Bee; and now, after 

 the lapse of years, the little bee cutting the scarlet geranium, 

 w T e reluctantly confess it, somewhat shakes our belief in what 

 we fear may possibly prove to be an entomological romance. 

 The observations recorded below have, we must admit, 

 created a suspicion in our minds that Anthocopa selects the 

 poppy, when the poppy chances to grow nearer to her 



