APID.E. 329 



will either make its burrows in the ground, in trees, in 

 snail shells, or in old walls, or locks, and once as mentioned 

 by Smith, constructed as many as fourteen cells in an old 

 fife that had been left on a shelf in a garden arbour. 

 Personally I have had very little opportunity of noticing 

 the habits of Osinia; as in a sandy district like Woking 

 this genus does not abound, bat the records of the 

 methods employed by the species which utilize old snail 

 shells as burrows, show a power of adaptation to circum- 

 stances which appears almost rational. In comparatively 

 small whorled shells such as Helix nemoi-alis the cells are 

 formed in single file, but if the shell selected be one of the 

 common garden snail, H. at^persa, or of the larger JI. 

 joomatia, the cells will be laid several abreast towards the 

 mouth, the bee apparently suiting the number of cells to 

 the circumference of the tube ; species of this genus have 

 been known to utilize straws and reeds, whilst kucomelana 

 as a rule burrows in bramble stems, although in this 

 neighbourhood (Woking) it burrows in the ground, the 

 larvEe when full fed, spin a cocoon, usually of a dark 

 brown colour, in this they will sometimes remain through 

 one or more winters in the larval state ; in the case of 

 0. parietina some cocoons received in 1849 produced 

 perfect insects in 1852. Of such as burrow in posts. 

 Smith gives the following interesting particulars. " She 

 commences the formation of her tunnel, not by excavating 

 downwards, as she would in that case be incommoded with 

 the dust and rubbish which she removes ; no, she works 

 upwards, and so avoids such inconvenience. When she has 

 thus proceeded to the length required she proceeds in a 

 horizontal direction to the outside of the post ; and now her 

 operations are conducted downwards, she constructs a cell 

 near the bottom of the tube, a second and a third and so 

 on to the required number ; the larvas when full fed have 

 their heads turned upwards, the bees which first arrive at 

 their perfect condition are the males, and it is these that are 

 first anxious to escape ; they usually do so several days 



