226 BRITISH BEES. 



It is one of the most elegant of our native bees, both 

 in form and the extreme congruity of its habiliment. 

 This is unfortunately but a bridal raiment, for almost 

 as soon as the arduous duties of maternity supervene 

 these bright garments fads, and the workday suit im- 

 mediately shows the wear and tear produced by the 

 labours of life. The male flaunts about longer in the 

 freshness of his attire, but he is usually the assiduous 

 companion of his spouse, although he does not partici- 

 pate in her toils. They are late summer insects, and 

 form their burrows upon banks having a southern as- 

 pect; these they excavate deeper than does Andrena, 

 and smooth and polish them internally. They gene- 

 rally prefer spots intertangled with shrubs, and at the 

 mouth of the cylinder they tunnel they heap up the 

 extracted soil, to use a portion for closing it when their 

 task is accomplished. In the course of this process, 

 especially if a cloud pass over tne sun, they will come 

 forward to the aperture. They collect large quantities 

 of pollen, for which the hair upon their posterior 

 tibiae and plantse is excellently well adapted both by 

 its length and the additional storing power it possesses 

 in each individual hair being spirally twisted, although 

 they are unprovided with the furniture of hair upon 

 the femora and coxse found in the genus Andrence. 

 Thus nature likes to vary its mode of accomplishing 

 the same object. The details of their nursery processes 

 are not known. For their protection their sting is very 

 virulent, and also actively employed, as they have many 

 enemies, especially amongst the fossorial PJymenoptera, 

 whom they stoutly resist to the extent of their strength. 

 We are not aware of any special parasites that infest 

 them. They are semigregarious in their habits, for 



