HYMENOPTERA. — APIDE. Dig 
standing the shortness of the wings, and the robustness of the body, 
fly with great strength and rapidity, and with a considerable humming 
noise. The sexes are often very different, both in structure and 
colour; the males in some having very long antennz ; in others, the 
posterior femora are thickened ; whilst, in a few the tarsi of the inter- 
mediate legs are furnished with curious brushes of hairs. The face is 
often of a pale yellow colour, and the females are generally of black 
or more obscure colours. They nidificate in the crevices of old walls 
or in the ground, preferring banks exposed to the sun. Their cells 
are composed of earth, and very smooth on the inside. The mouth 
of the nest is closed with the same material. 
_ The species of Eucera, as the name implies, are distinguished by 
the great length of the antennz in the males, which are nearly equal 
to that of the body. Mr. Kirby has observed that the last ten joints 
of these organs in this sex are composed of innumerable minute hexa- 
gons. The cells of these insects are formed under ground, at the 
depth of two or three inches: their internal surface is very smooth. 
The Anthophore, at least the common British species A. retusa, 
makes its nest not only in hard dry banks, but also in the crevices of 
walls, burrowing through the mortar, and causing much damage by 
loosening the bricks. Each nest contains several cells of an oval or 
elliptical shape, placed irregularly, and covered with a thin white 
membrane : they are about three quarters of an inch in length. An 
interesting memoir, by Latreille, is published in the third volume of 
the Annales du Muséum, upon Anthophora parietina: the fourteenth 
volume of the same work likewise contains another memoir by the same 
author upon this genus. In Insect Architecture (p. 33.) are some de- 
tails relative to the habits of the typical species A. retusa, which appears 
-very early in the spring. I have observed that this insect, both on 
the wing and when at rest, does not carry its hind wings on the 
same plane as the fore wings. 
The genus Saropoda seems to connect the preceding insects with 
the carpenter bees, its structure so nearly approaching Anthophora, 
that the French authors unite them together ; but its habits, according 
to Mr. Kirby, who observed the proceedings of S. furcata, are quite 
different, resembling those of Xylocopa. It nidificates in putrescent 
wood, forming longitudinal burrows, which are divided into nine or 
ten oval chambers, separated from each other by a sharp kind of cor- 
nice, forming the shells of an equal number of cells made of the 
Q 
At ke) 
