218 BRITISH BEES. 



although a very common insect, having a richly golden 

 fulvous pubescence on the thorax, an intensely black 

 and glabrous abdomen, the apex of which is fringed with 

 golden hair. No males are now to be found at all. Yet 

 it is only some species, and these the larger ones, which 

 are subject to this peculiarity, for the smaller ones I 

 have found burrowing during the summer months in 

 vertical or sloping banks with a sunny aspect, whilst 

 the males were hovering about both in the vicinity and 

 close by, sometimes either playing or fighting on the 

 wing with the very small Nomada, which infest these 

 species parasitically, whilst their females were sedulously 

 pursuing their vocation. Gradually these joyous spring 

 insects lose their gayness and their brilliancy, as do 

 those which have followed in succession of development 

 with the growing year, and they become senile and 

 faded and are lost as they have progressively fulfilled 

 their function. By this time the ragwort is in bloom, and 

 the thistle displays its pinky blossoms ; now the males 

 are to be found numerously exhibiting themselves upon 

 these flowers, and also another equally fresh brood to 

 those of the spring and early summer, of females. My 

 friend the late Mr. Pickering, who was in the early days 

 of the present Entomological Society, when it held its 

 meetings in Old Bond Street, its honorary curator, 

 and who was then and always, even when less leisure 

 was afforded him from professional duties, a most assi- 

 duous and diligent observer of the habits of insects, 

 propounded his theory, both in conversation and before 

 the meetings of the Society, although he never drew up 

 a paper upon the subject, that these females were then 

 impregnated, upon which they retired to a hibernaculum, 

 and there remained until the breath of a new spring 



