194 BRITISH BEES. 



being parasitical, for many bees, for instance Ceratina, 

 Heriades, etc., nidificate in bramble sticks, and they 

 may have superseded the nidificating bee by depositing 

 their ova in the nests of the latter ; although it certainly 

 is a remarkable circumstance that some one of these 

 bees has never escaped destruction in the several instances 

 in which these have been thus bred. It is also said that 

 their nests contain a semi-liquid honey. The fact of the 

 larva of a wild bee being nurtured upon any other pro- 

 vender than a mixture of pollen and honey, does not 

 elsewhere occur, and it would seem to contradict the 

 function this family is ordained to exercise, by conveying 

 pollen from flower to flower, and which besides, in every 

 other case, constitutes the nutritive aliment of the larva. 

 But then, again, the structure of its tongue, which re- 

 sembles somewhat that of Colletes in lateral expansion, 

 and with which it would be provided for some analogous 

 purpose, seems to contradict parasitical habits, although 

 St. Fargeau asserts that it is parasitical upon this genus, 

 and if so, although it has not been observed in this 

 country, the analogous structure of the tongue might be 

 perhaps explained. 



But notwithstanding this deficiency of positive cha- 

 racters, from the absence of pollinigerous organs, nature 

 is not to be controlled by laws framed by us upon the 

 imperfect induction of incomplete facts, for if it be in- 

 contestable that this genus is constructive and not pa- 

 rasitical, the riddle presented by this structure of its 

 tongue is at once solved, for without any affinity beyond 

 that single peculiarity with Colletes, it presents an ano- 

 maly of organization which cannot be accounted for but 

 by its application to a use similar to what we find it 

 applied in that extraordinary genus, a use that could 



