122 PSYCHE [December 



THE SUN-DANCE OF MELISSODES. 



C. H. TURNER, AUGUSTA, GA. 



The time was the month of August; the place, an abandoned garden in Augusta, 

 Georgia. In one end of that garden, where a poor stand of grass had supplanted 

 the beans which once flourished there, a host of burrowing-bees, bearing the generic 

 name Melissodes, had excavated their burrows. Some of these burrows were exposed 

 in barren spots, while others were hidden, more or less, in clumps of grass. At any 

 hour of the day, these industrious burrowing-bees could be seen storing their nests 

 with pollen; while the cuckoo-bees [N omadidoe] loitered on neighboring grass-blades 

 or hovered about the burrows, waiting for an opportunity to lay their eggs upon the 

 stored-up food of the industrious Melissodes. Crossing the path of the breeze and 

 the rays of the sun at every possible angle, active alike in sunshine and shadow, yet 

 disturbed by even slight changes in the topographical environment of the burrow, 

 the female Melissodes continues her work from early morn until set of sun; proclaim- 

 ing, in deeds more eloquent than words: "My behavior is much more than a complex 

 of anemotropisms and phototropisms, for my homing is controlled by memory pic- 

 tures of the environment of my nest." 



At one spot in this garden, a place where the sun shone brightly all the day long, 

 there was a conspicuous patch of grass about five feet long and two feet wide. In 

 and about this grass-plot were situated, at irregular intervals, several burrows of 

 this bee. Usually a burrow was the property of a single female; but in some cases 

 two, and in yet rarer cases three, bees utilized the same burrow. A round trip to 

 the pollen fields required only about twenty minutes. Since all the bees did not 

 start for the forage grounds at the same time, hardly five minutes of daylight passed 

 by without a female Melissodes passing near to or across that plot of ground. This 

 patch of grass was the site of the dance of which this article treats. Although daily, 

 for a whole week, several hours were devoted to a study of this dance, yet it was 

 never performed at any other place in the garden. 



Many a time have I watched the wind-dance of the Diptera — watched the 

 flies, hovering several feet above the ground, with their heads all facing the wind, rise 

 and fall in rhythmic movements. This sun-dance of Melissodes is not such a trop- 

 ism, for the axis of the body bears no constant relation either to the direction of the 

 wind or to the rays of the sun. Nor is it like any of the human square dances, where 

 a constant number of people arrange themselves in ever shifting geometrical patterns; 



