186 INSECTS. 



or, as seems probable, on the young owners themselves 

 of the cells. 



The female may frequently be seen running busily 

 about on posts and palings such as the Carpenter Bee 

 delights to choose for her nest, or on sandy banks ; in 

 short, wherever her victims may be found. Carefully 

 watching her opportunity, she seizes the right moment 

 for depositing her egg or eggs, notwithstanding a spirited 

 resistance which sometimes takes place on the part of 

 the rival mother. Mr. Westwood relates from M. le 

 Comte de Saint Fargeau an amusing instance of this. 

 One of the Mason Wasps, " returning to its nearly- 

 finished cell, laden with pollen-paste, found the Hedy- 

 chrum (one of the Chrysis family) in its nest, which it 

 attacked with its jaws. The parasite, however, imme- 

 diately coiled itself into a ball, so that the Bee was 

 unable to hurt it. The Bee, however, bit off the four 

 wings, which were exposed, rolled it to the ground, and 

 then deposited its own load in the cell and flew away. 

 Whereupon the Hedychrum, now wingless, had the 

 persevering instinct to crawl up- the wall to the nest, 

 and there quietly deposit its egg, which it placed between 

 the pollen-paste and the wall of the cell, which prevented 

 the Bee from seeing it." 



There are five genera and twenty-four British species 

 in this family. 



