FEBRUARY. 57 



duce large quantities of pollen. I have also noticed them 

 on Indian pinks, Godetias, and other flowers, and in the 

 large yellow fragrant blossoms of a common evening 

 primrose have seen them apparently stupifted or intoxi- 

 cated. Yellow seems to be their favourite colour. 



The holes are excavated more or less obliquely in very 

 firm ground, such as well-trodden paths, or hard clay banks, 

 but never in loose soil. They vary. from two to four inches 

 in depth, are circular in section, with smooth walls, and 

 have no lining. Each ends abruptly without enlargement, 

 but frequently the bee makes more than one chamber at 

 the extremity, but it always closes up all but one. When 

 the hole is made (I may say I have never seen the process 

 of excavation going on) the insect seems to spin a sort of 

 membrane or bag into which it collects the pollen which it 

 has accumulated on its hairy legs. When a pellet rather 

 larger than a pea has been gathered, the bee lays an egg in 

 the mass, rolls the membrane round it, and closes the 

 orifice. This at least seems to me to be the process, but 

 my examinations have been very cursory, and the results 

 want confirmation. I have looked into the holes during 

 the months named, and have never been able to follow 

 out a series of consecutive observations. Many of the 

 holes are found to be quite empty, others have balls of 

 pollen in them, while others have larva? in various stages 

 with the pollen a good deal eaten. In one hole I found a 

 well- developed insect, apparently in the pupa stage, with a 

 rather ferocious -looking head, and no pollen beside it. 

 Had it not been among the holes of other bees I would 

 have taken the insect to be the grub of a tiger beetle. I 

 have taken out balls of pollen and kept them in loosely- 

 corked tubes to see if I could observe the development of 

 the insect, but my results were always rather suggestive 

 of the duck which Tom Brown wrapped in paper and put 

 away in the cupboard the pollen always decayed and 

 grew a crop of mould, but no insect ever appeared. Here 

 is a nice little piece of research work for some embryo 

 naturalist to undertake and follow up ; all that is wanted 

 is to take a careful set of observations, and we shall soon 



