MEGACHILE. 273 



suitably come under that denomination. The species 

 themselves of the genus are called leaf-cutters, from the 

 habit they have of cutting pieces from the leaves of 

 various shrubs and trees, for the purpose of lining their 

 nests. The description of the operations of one species 

 will apply precisely to that carried on by all, the occa- 

 sional difference between them being the selection of the 

 leaves of distinct plants ; and it will exhibit the patient 

 industry and perseverance with which these little uphol- 

 sterers carry on their labours. 



Thus M. centuncularis } the type of the genus, burrows 

 in decaying wood or in brick walls, and sometimes also in 

 the ground, and makes use of the cuttings of rose leaves, 

 not the petals, and the leaves of the annual and peren- 

 nial Mercury (Mercurialis annua and M.perennis). The 

 M . ligniseca bores into sound Oak and the Mountain Ash, 

 as well as into putrescent Elm, and uses Elm leaves to 

 line its nests, sometimes called centunculi from their 

 being as it were patched together. This is the largest 

 of all our species, and is found very abundantly every- 

 where around London frequenting the flowers of the 

 Thistle. The M. argentata, Fab., or Leachella of Kirby, is 

 perhaps the prettiest of all the species, and forms its 

 tunnels in sandbanks. I do not know what leaves this 

 species selects, which used to be extremely rare, indeed 

 for a long time only known by the specimen in the British 

 Museum, until that ardent entomologist the Rev. F. W. 

 Hope, to whom the University of Oxford owes its superb 

 entomological collection, brought it in abundance from 

 Southend, where, during his brief annual stay at his 

 residence there, he used to find it in the grove which 

 runs under the cliff edging the terrace of the village ; 

 it is extremely local, as that and Wey bridge, in Surrey, 



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