205 



102. Sitaris humeralis. I found in the wall, about ten days back, in my own g;ar- 

 den at Hammersmith, tbe remains of a specimen of Sitaris humeralis. — Samuel Ste- 

 vens ; 38, Khif/ St, Covent Garden, Sept. 14, 1841. 



103. Genus Sympetrum. I thought I would write and mention a rather singular 

 occurrence respecting the species of the genus Sympetrum. You are aware that five 

 years since S. flaveolatum appeared in profusion, and also S. basale ; the foimer seems 

 to have quite disappeared, and the latter has become scarce. On this same ground a 

 single S. rubicuudum was caught in May, and now S. Scoticum has appeared in pro- 

 fusion ! There is something strange in these species appearing in succession on a spot 

 hunted for years previously without an individual of either species being seen. — Henry 

 Douhleday ; £ppin(/, Sept. 16, 1841. 



104. Economy of a Bee. On Saturday, May 29, 1 observed an insect (which, from its 

 size and yellow colour, at the distance I was from it I conjectured to be a mother wasp 

 flying about in search of a place to commence a nest iu) creeping into a hole in one 

 of the workshop-doors. Not being aware that the hole was stopped on the other side 

 of the door, and also being busily engaged, it slipped from my memory, and I thought 

 no more of the circumstance until the following Tuesday morning, when I again ob- 

 served the insect entering the hole, and I then saw that it was a bee, about the size of 

 a male hive bee ; the thorax and abdomen were covered with orange-coloured hairs, 

 but not so densely clothed as the humble bees. In a few minutes it emerged from its 

 habitation and flew away ; it returned iu about ten minutes, with a mass of clay or 

 earth of a light colour in its mandibles; the mass was nearly the size of its head, and 

 appeared to be a single hard lump. When the bee returned she rested with her fore 

 claws on the edge of the hole for a few seconds before it entered with its burden. The 

 sun just then shining very bright, and directly opposite the door, enabled me to ob- 

 serve her motions in kneading the clay, or rather I should say masticating it, previ- 

 ously to applying it to form the walls of the cells for her progeny. Perhaps before I 

 proceed any farther I had better give a description of the hole, as the manner in which 

 it was formed gave me very peculiar advantages, of which at first I had no conception. 

 The pait of the door where the hole is situated is about two inches thick ; the hole is 

 about % of an inch in diameter, on the inside it is covered by a part of the lock. On 

 the outside of the door a circular piece of wood, about two inches in diameter and \ of 

 an inch thick, with a hole in its centre rather more than ^ an inch in diameter, was 

 sunk in the door even with the surface but not fastened ; this was covered over with a 

 thin metal plate nailed on the door. I watched the opportunity when the bee had 

 just started on one of her journeys, and wrenched off the plate; I then, by taking out 

 the thin piece of wood after she flew away each time, had a perfect view of what she 

 had been doing, and could replace it in readiness against her return. I could not ob- 

 serve the bee at work before about half-past 9, or 10 o'clock in the morning ; I likewise 

 missed her for about an hour or an hour and a half about noon, and she generally left 

 off working about 4 ; so that her working hours occupied only five hours out of the 

 twenty-four: what she was doing the other nineteen, I of course pretend not to say, 

 I only know that she did not sleep in the nest. I have several times opened the bur- 

 rows of the solitary wasps about sunset, while in the process of formation, with 

 the curved tubular entrances about an inch long, and have invariably found a wasp 

 asleep in them, close to the bottom of the burrow. From the Tuesday until the Fri- 

 day (when I wholly lost her) the door stood wide open into the shop, and one of the 

 men was working about a vard from it, she however flew direct to her hole without anj 



