HYMENOPTERA. ACULEATA. 235 



remarkable from the acutely conical form of the abdo- 

 men, which is truncated in front. 



These little creatures, of course, follow the Bees upon 

 which they are parasitic, into whatever burrows they 

 may form, and thus the student must be on his guard 

 against taking for granted that the young Bee which he 

 has carefully hatched from a cell in a bramble-stick, or 

 has watched in its first emerging from one in an old post 

 or wall, is necessarily the maker or the rightful owner of 

 such cell. 



This intrusive family of CuculinaB, now described, has, 

 according to its wont, pushed itself into a place where it 

 had no right to be ; and if a reader, more scientific than 

 those for whom these pages are intended, should ask 

 why the Cuckoo Bees, the second family of the Apidce, 

 have been allowed to come into the place of the Andre- 

 noides, the first family, the only available answer is 

 that the writer on Bees has had no better luck than the 

 Bees themselves, and could not keep the Cuculinas from 

 coming where they had no business to come. 



The sub -family of Andrenoides consists of but one 

 genus, Panurgus, containing two species, and owes 

 its proper position as first of the Apidae to its re- 

 semblance to the Andrenoides, as indicated by its name 

 (i.e., Andrena-like). It does, in fact, appear to form a 

 connecting link between the AndrenidaB and the Apid. 

 In their manner of burrowing and storing their nests, in 

 the possession of a pollen brush on the several joints of 

 the legs, and other particulars, the Bees of this genus 

 show a close affinity to the former, while the character 

 of the folded tongue at once determines them to the 

 latter family. They have, besides the pollen brushes, a 

 shiny pollen basket on the outside of the thighs, and 



