242 



INSECTS. 



musical, good-natured, very playful, and their flight, 

 when coursing one another over the ground occupied 

 by their colony, is rapid and graceful. Additional in- 

 terest is given by the intermingling of the bright little 

 yellow-banded parasite Nomada sexfasciata, which ap- 

 pear to have free entrance to the burrows of the Eucera. 

 Another parasite, a two-winged fly, looking so like a 

 Bee as easily to be mistaken for one, is also to be found 

 with these Bees. The submarginal cells in the wings of 

 Eucera are two in number. 



Saropoda is distinguished by the labial palpi, which 

 though really composed of four joints, form a straight 

 bristle-like organ. In the other English Apidee (see 

 fig. 63, e\ the terminal joint or joints are placed at an 

 angle. It contains only one species, S. Bimaculata, a 

 wood-burrower. The wings have three submarginal cells. 

 Anthophora contains four spe- 

 cies. They burrow in hard banks, 

 old walls, &c., forming in them 

 white-lined, elliptical egg-cells, 

 which they provision and seal. 

 A. Acervorum, a very common Bee, 

 is nearly or quite two-thirds of an 

 inch in length, black and hairy, 

 with reddish-yellow hairs upon 

 the legs in the female ; in the 

 male, the fore part of the abdo- 

 men is clothed with yellow hair, 

 there is yellow about the face, 

 and the legs, of which the middle 

 Head of Anthophora retusa. - i i frinfrpq of 



fUlil ell U lUlJc;* IlclVc .1 1 1 i-l ii: U o Ul 



white and of black hairs. The submarginal cells are 

 three. 



Fig. 63. 



