HYMENOPTERA. — APIDE. 975 
indicated specific identity, has united several distinct species under 
the name of Apis centuncularis. This genus is well distinguished by 
the ovate abdomen and the maxillary palpi being very short and two- 
jointed. In the females, the former part is flattened above, and very 
woolly beneath ; the jaws and labrum, also, are very large ; whence the 
generic name. The species form their nests in the trunks of decayed 
trees; I have also dug them out of old palings: they are lined with 
pieces of leaves, of a circular form, which the insects have most dexte- 
rously clipped off, by the assistance of their powerful jaws. These pieces 
are so admirably adjusted together, that, although not covered with any 
coating of gum, &c., they are honey-tight ; the interior surface of each 
cell is composed of three of these pieces, the bottom being concave, and 
fitted into the mouth of the cell beneath: six or seven of these cells 
are found in each burrow. Mr. Kirby has given the history of these 
bees at great length in his monograph, and has added a translation of 
Réaumutr’s account, contained in the fourth memoir of his sixth vol- 
ume. (See also Mag. Nat. Hist. No. 6., for an account of the habits 
of M. centuncularis; and G. R. Waterhouse, in Ent. Mag. vol. iv. 
p- 497., on the habits of Meg. circumcincta.) The males of M. Wil- 
lughbiella are distinguished by having the terminal joint of the an- 
tennz thickened, and the fore legs greatly dilated. Réaumur (Mém. 
tom. vi. mém. v. pl. 13.) likewise gave an account of another bee, which 
he termed “abeille tapissire,” and which employs pieces of the leaves 
of the scarlet poppy of the corn-fields, for the lining of its cells. The 
precise species, however, remained unknown until Latreille, by again 
tracing its habits, discovered and described it under the name of 
Megach. papaveris, in a valuable memoir appended to his Hist. Nat. des 
Fourmis, and which now forms the type of the genus Anthocopa of Ser.. 
ville and St. Fargeau (Fine. Méth. tom. x. p. 314.), or rather of Latreille 
(Hist. Nat. tom. xiv.). Other species, as the Megachile muraria (form- 
ing the type of St. Fargeau’s unpublished genus Chalicodoma, — see 
Brullé, Hapéd. Scient. de Morée), are, however, true mason bees. The 
history of the last-named species has been detailed by Réaumur (tom. 
vi. mém. ili.), and has been misapplied by Mr. Kirby (Monogr. vol. i. 
p. 178.) to the Osmiz. Schaeffer has also given an elaborate account 
of this species in his Abhandlung (vol. ii.), illustrated in five plates. 
Some nests of this species, collected by M. Audouin and myself near 
Paris, have enabled me to observe the habits of this species, so fully 
detailed by these authors; and to discover that it is attacked by 
Ary 
