14 THE HUMBLE-BEE 11 
was most pleasantly perfumed day after day by the 
males in a nest of 2B. dapzdarzus that was standing 
on a table there. 
The males of BL. derhamellus often disport them- 
selves around the nest, waiting for the queens to 
come out; those of &. Jdatrezllellus will also do 
this; and I have seen a male of 2B. ruderatus 
ride away upon a queen as she was flying from the 
nest.’ 
Immediately after fertilisation the queen seeks 
a bed in which to take her long winter sleep. The 
queens of some of the species hibernate under the 
ground, others creep into moss, thatch, or heaps 
of rubbish. I have found B. lapzdarius and B. 
terrestris and occasionally BL. ruderatus and B. 
latreillellus in the ground, B. lucorum and LB. hor- 
torum in moss, and &. pratorum sometimes in the 
ground, sometimes in moss. 
My observations have been made chiefly on 
the underground-hibernating species, /apzdarzus and 
terrestris. Both species pass the winter in much 
the same situations, but ¢errestris likes best to 
burrow in ground under trees, while /apzdarzus 
prefers a more open position, almost invariably 
1 The Rev. A. E. Eaton observed the males of 4. mendax in the Berner 
Oberland, at an altitude of over 6000 feet, ‘‘resorting to favourite spots to 
bask (a stone or a spot of bare ground), hovering with a gradual fall like a 
feather, that ends almost imperceptibly in a dead stop, and standing with 
wings half spread, ready to dart off in an instant at the least alarm, or the 
sight of any insect flying past.” E. Saunders, in quoting this in the Z7/o- 
mologist’s Monthly Magazine (April 1909, p. 84), called attention to the 
enormous eyes of the male of 4. mezdax, and to the fact that the males of the 
sand-wasp As¢atus, whose eyes are so large that they unite, have exactly the 
same habit. 
