136 HYMENOPTERA. 



dent, are crowded together in grassy banks. Species of 

 Melecta are parasitic on them, ovipositing in their cells. The 

 larvae are infected by the Chalcid flies, Anthophorabia and 

 Monodontomerus, and by a peculiar species of Mite, Hete- 

 ropus ventricosns, described by Newport. Say has described 

 Anthophora abrupta and A. taurea from Indiana. 



In Eucera the antennae are very long, while the body is still 

 plump and hairy : our more common form in the Middle States 

 is Eucera maculata St. Fargeau. The species are likewise 

 gregarious, and, according to Smith, their habits are precisely 

 the same as those of Anthophora. 



In Megachile, the Leaf-cutter Bee, the head is broad, the 

 body stout, oblong, the ligula is about one-half longer than 

 the labial palpi, being quite stout, while the paraglossse are 

 short and pointed ; the maxillae are long and sabre-shaped, 

 while their palpi are short and two-jointed. There are two 

 subcostal cells in the fore wing. It is a thick-bodied bee, with 

 a large square head, stout scissor-like jaws, and with a thick 

 mass of dense hairs on the under side of the tail for the pur- 

 pose of carrying pollen, since it is not provided with a pollen 

 basket as in the Honey and Humble-bees. The larva is broader 

 and flatter than that of Bombus, the raised pleura! region is a 

 little more prominent, and the raised, thickened tergal portion 

 of each ring is more prominent than in Bombus. 



The Megachile lays its eggs in burrows in the stems of the 

 elder (Plate 4, Fig. 2), which we have received from Mr. 

 James Angus ; w r e have also found them in the hollows of the 

 locust tree. Mr. F. W. Putnam thus speaks of the economy 

 of M. centuncularis, our most common species. "My attention 

 was first called, on the 26th of June, to a female busily en- 

 gaged in bringing pieces of leaf to her cells, which she was build- 

 ing under a board, on the roof of the piazza, directly under 

 my window. Nearly the whole morning was occupied by the 

 bee in bringing pieces of leaf from a rose-bush growing about 

 ten yards from her cells, returning at intervals of a half minute 

 to a minute with the pieces which she carried in such a manner 

 as not to impede her walking when she alighted near her hole. 

 [We give a figure of the Leaf-cutter bee in the act of cutting 

 out a circular piece of a rose-leaf (Plate 4, Fig. 8). She 



