$ wbicli Lacl made its burrow in an old Broom stump; he 

 was good enough to send me the stump with the burrow iu 

 it, but the bees never came to perfectiou, the burrows were 

 liaed with rose leaves ; last autumn he procured another 

 stump for me, from which I have bred both sexes ; at 

 Woking it burrows in the sand. Smith records it from 

 AVeybridge ; Bournemouth ; Bristol ; Carlisle. I^he S last 

 j'ear (1893) appeared in May, but probably June would be 

 its usual time ; I have taken the ? as late as September. 



M. argentata, Fah. (LeacheUa, Curt.). — The smallest 

 British species of the genus ; black, head and thorax closely 

 punctured, densely clothed with greyish-golden hairs, the 

 former in the (J sometimes wider than the latter, mandibles 

 clothed with grey hairs, apical joint of the antennte in the 

 S flattened and very slightly dilated ; wings slightly 

 clouded ; abdomen closely punctured, the first three seg- 

 ments in the c?, the first two in the ? , clothed with erect 

 greyish-golden hairs, the rest with shorter, black hairs, all 

 the segments in both sexes with well-defined pale apical 

 fringes, sixth segment in the c? densely clothed with 

 ochreous hairs except at the apex, the apical crest irregu- 

 larly spinose at the sides, and emarginate in the centre ; 

 ventral segments in the S fringed with long white hairs, 

 sixth without an apical wing, stipites of armature looked at 

 from above slightly curved, looked at laterally bifid at the 

 apex, the upper tooth narrow and pointed, sagittte flattened 

 at the sides, subtruncate at the apex ; ? with the scopa 

 silvery white, posterior margins of the segments fringed 

 with fine hairs ; legs clothed with white hairs, c? with the 

 posterior concavity of the anterior femora, and the anterior 

 tibije at the back, testaceous, base of the claws testaceous 

 in both sexes. 



L. 9—11 mm. 



Common in some parts of the coast and occasionally 

 found inland ; occurs in July and August, and according 

 to Smith often lines its burrows with the petals of Lotus 



