442 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



I am indebted to the kindness of M. Latreille, who first 

 scientifically described the species a . 



Megachile centuncularis, M. Willuglibiella^ and other 

 species of the same family, like the preceding, cover the 

 walls of their cells with a coating of leaves, but are con- 

 tent with a more sober colour, generally selecting for 

 their hangings the leaves of trees, especially of the rose, 

 whence they have been known by the name of the leaf- 

 cutter bees. They differ also from M. Papaveris in ex- 

 cavating longer burrows, and filling them with several 

 thimble-shaped cells composed of portions of leaves so 

 curiously convoluted, that, if we were ignorant in what 

 school they have been taught to construct them, we 

 should never credit their being the work of an insect. 

 Their entertaining history, so long ago as 1670, attracted 

 the attention of our countrymen Ray, Lister, Willughby, 

 and Sir Edward King ; but we are indebted for the most 

 complete account of their procedures to Reaumur. 



The mother bee first excavates a cylindrical hole 

 eight or ten inches long, in a horizontal direction, either 

 in the ground or in the trunk of a rotten willow-tree, or 

 occasionally in other decaying wood. This cavity she 

 fills with six or seven cells wholly composed of portions 

 of leaf, of the shape of a thimble, the convex end of one 

 closely fitting into the open end of another. Her first 

 process is to form the exterior coating, which is com- 

 posed of three or four pieces of larger dimensions than 

 the rest, and of an oval form. The second coating is 

 formed of portions of equal size, narrow at one end but 

 gradually widening towards the other, where the width 

 equals half the length. One side of these pieces is the 



* Latr. Hist. Nat. des Fourmis, 297. 



