HYMENOPTERA. ACULEATA. 239 



are firmly cemented together with some glutinous matter, 

 and the Bee has finished her task. 



" We will now observe the intelligence of the Bee under 

 different circumstances. She has selected the adult 

 shell of Helix aspersa ; the whorl of this species is 

 much larger in diameter than that of H. nemoralis, or 

 H. hortensis, too wide, in fact, for a single cell. Our 

 little architect, never at a loss, readily adapts it to her 

 purpose by forming two cells side by side ; and as she 

 advances towards the entrance of the whorl it becomes 

 too wide even for this contrivance. Here let us admire 

 the ingenuity of the little creature ; she constructs a 

 couple of cells transversely. And this is the little animal 

 which has been so blindly slandered as being a mere 

 machine." 



The antenna? of the males of Osmia are fringed with 

 hair down one side. 



The next genus, Megachile, is marked by the size of 

 its jaws and by its two-jointed maxillary palpi. It con- 

 tains the Leaf-cutters, Bees which, forming their 

 burrows in various situations, in the softer parts of old 

 walls, in the ground, or in wooden posts, &c., partition 

 them into a series of cells by means of circular pieces 

 of leaf, so accurately fitted together as safely to confine 

 the honey which is stored in them. Some species are 

 not uncommon, and the reader may perhaps recall to 

 his mind the frequent appearance of rose leaves (not 

 petals) with circular holes in them, always cut from the 

 edge of the leaf, and which have been operated upon by 

 some of these Bees. It is easy to distinguish such leaves 

 from those eaten by caterpillars, the clean-cut edge, the 

 nearly perfect circle, and the approach to uniformity of 

 size in these holes, marking the work of the Leaf-cutter 



