HYMENOPTERA BRED FROM CYNIPS KOLLARI GALLS. 119 
was fortunate enough to breed two males and three females of this 
recently described and presumably rare bee. The numerous 
species of Prosopis are by no means particular where they 
construct their nests; any ready-made cavity seems to be 
appropriated. Mr. F. Smith instanced bramble-sticks, dock- 
stems, hole in a hollow flint, holes in the mortar of a wall, 
burrows and tunnels of various Fossores and Osmie, &c.; and Mr. 
J. Bridgman writes me, “ Prosopi will make their nests anywhere. 
I have found them burrowing in soil like Halicti, in the old 
burrows of Chelostoma campanularum, in an old post, making use 
of the old cells of Colletes Daviesana, two of them in a cell 
partitioned off lengthwise in brambles and in old beetle-burrows.” 
To these may now be added, abandoned galls. The genera Prosopis 
and Sphecodes were at one time considered to be parasitic, being 
destitute of the usual appendages adapted to convey pollen: but 
Mr. F. Smith has proved otherwise (see Entom. iil. 305, and 
‘British Bees,’ p. 7). The female of P. rupestris is described in 
‘Ent. Ann.,’ 1872, p. 103, and Mr. Smith was to have perfected 
his description by describing the previously unknown male. This 
MS. and specimens were in his hands, but, willing as we know 
the spirit of our veteran Hymenopterist was, the flesh was weak. 
The male is, however, rather smaller than the female, the body less 
ovate ; the knee-joint of all legs whitish, the female having only 
the knee-joint of the hinder pair white; antenne longer than in 
the female, and the face with two white side marks and a white 
elypeus, which latter is black in the female. 
For years I have bred from these galls by the hundred, and 
never met with any species of Aculeata, Tenthredinide, or 
Ichneumonide. Mr. Weston’s experience requires explanation : 
in collecting his stores he gathered them in winter, and mostly 
those galls from which the normal inhabitants had escaped; I 
always collected earlier, and especially rejected the empty galls, 
my purpose being the Cynipids and Chalcids. Wenow see what a 
harvest may be reaped from the abandoned or pierced galls. Should 
others be led to follow this line of collecting, I would ask them to 
remember that all the species bred have a certain value, whether 
they belong to a favourite order or otherwise. In the small circle 
of a gall several life-history facts may be established conclusively, 
although many of the above-mentioned insects were only 
hybernators in convenient winter-quarters. 
Maldon, Essex. 
