( l.xxiv ) 



possibly have been less than 50 o Stylops in the original 

 assembly, but when I looked up after boxing the 7 (which 

 took some minutes, as they are so wild in the net) I could 

 see no trace of any remaining. At about 11.45, having seen 

 no more, I went away from the hedge into the field to tee if 

 any <$ Stylops might be seen about the burrows of A. wilkella, 

 and if the bees themselves were in any numbers. So far I 

 had only seen two of the Andrenas on the hedge — both 

 stylopised. The burrows did not appear numerous, being 

 scattered over most of the field, one here and one there, and 

 not forming a compact colony, such as I have often seen in 

 the sandy lanes near Shotover. I captured every wilkella I 

 saw, 26 in all, of which 25 were stylopised and 1 $ bee only 

 healthy ! 



" It must not be supposed that practically all the A. 

 wilkella in the field are stylopised — there is a strong tendency 

 for stylopised examples to emerge a week or even two weeks 

 before the average date of appearance of the healthy ones. 

 Therefore one may go to this field a fortnight hence and very 

 likely get plenty of healthy and very few stylopised ones. 

 Also stylopised bees are much easier to catch than healthy 

 ones. For this reason the percentages of stylopised to healthy 

 bees given by various authors on particular occasions is of 

 very little real value. 



" Except in one case all the 25 stylopised bees contained 

 either $ Stylo}JS or empty puparia of the <$. One contains a 

 full <$ puparium, but the protruded part of this is daubed 

 over with a patch of the red soil, which has prevented the 

 emergence of the insect. I took several of these stylopised 

 bees and placed them in slightly opened boxes in the gorse 

 bushes, but nothing was attracted, as I had hoped might 

 happen. While collecting these bees, I saw a single J Stylops 

 pass high overhead (I could not reach it with my net, which 

 was on a 3 ft. stick) in the middle of the field, flying straight 

 across, but I lost sight of it after a while. 



"At 1.15 p.m. (12.15 vere) I captured a v wilkella contain- 

 ing 2 , Stylops more than usually extruded. I held this in 

 my hand by the head and thorax with the abdomen fully 

 exposed to the sun. Within five or six minutes 1 eaughl 



