224 THIS ENTOMOLOGIST. 



wasps and their respective nests, and a number of the actual 

 nests, collected in India by Mv. Charles Home. 



Mr. Home (who was present as a visitor) gave some inte- 

 resting details on the habits of the insects. The species of 

 bee which was kept by the natives was, he believed, the 

 Apis dorsata. In the North-west Provinces it was necessary 

 to leave the key in every lock, or the cavity was pretty sure 

 to be occupied by a Pelopaeus: if a sheet of paper was left 

 on a mantel-shelf, it would be fixed thereto by an inserted 

 mud-cell ; or a like cell might often be found interposed be- 

 tween a pillow and the bed ; even a little hollow in the floor, 

 in spite of the inevitable destruction of the nest, would be 

 filled ; and in one case he had known a nest to be placed on 

 the edge of a door, and it was seven times crushed by the 

 shutting of the door, and seven tin)es renewed before the 

 little bee could be induced to forsake the spot she had 

 chosen. Some of the nests exhibited were placed in very 

 singular positions ; one, of a leaf-cutting bee, was in the 

 handle or ear of a terra cotta vase, access being obtained 

 through a small hole in the narrow lower end of the handle ; 

 another, belonging to a Pelopasus, and consisting of a single 

 mud-cell, was attached to a man's signet or finger-ring the 

 stone of which had fallen out, and was fastened to the metal 

 by means of a coil or knot of mud passed through the hole 

 where the stone had been ; a third nest of a bee consisted of 

 a spherical mass of cells which was found in the centre 

 (filling up the whole hollow) of the nest of a mouse, which 

 was suspended in grass. 



Prof. Weslwood mentioned that at Oxford he had found a 

 mouse's nest in the centre of one of his bee-hives, sur- 

 rounded by a number of headless bees. 



Correction of an Error. — At page 177, under Phyllotoma 

 microcephala, Klug., eight lines from the top, for " the 4th 

 and the 12th or penultimate segments are apodal," read " the 

 5th and penultimate segments are apodal." 



