Upholsterer-Bees. 65 



Keaumur, has been supposed to inhabit this country, speci- 

 mens having been placed in the collection at the British 

 Museum. But it was with much regret that I discovered, 

 when engaged upon the catalogue of British bees for the 

 Museum, and had occasion to examine each individual 

 specimen with care, that in the first place there was no 

 satisfactory evidence of the locality, and that in the next 

 place, all the males associated with the series were those of 

 Osmia adunca, of Panzear." For these reasons, this species 

 has been excluded from the list of British bees.] Keaumur 

 remarked that the cells of this bee which he found at Bercy, 

 were situated in a northern exposure, contrary to what he 

 had remarked in the mason-bee, which prefers the south. 

 The cells at Largs, however, were on an elevated bank, 

 facing the south, near Sir Thomas Brisbane's observatory. 

 With respect to exposure, indeed, no certain rule seems 

 applicable ; for the nests of mason-bees which we found on 

 the wall of Greenwich Park faced the north-east, and we have 

 often found carpenter-bees make choice of a similar situation. 

 In one instance, we found carpenter-bees working indifferently 

 on the north-east and south-west side of the same post. 



As we did not perceive any heaps of earth near the holes 

 at Largs, we concluded that it must either have been carried 

 off piecemeal when they were dug, or that they were old 

 holes re-occupied (a circumstance common with bees), and 

 that the rubbish had been trodden down by passengers. 

 Reaumur, who so minutely describes the subsequent opera- 

 tions of the bee T says nothing respecting its excavations. 

 One of these holes is about three inches deep, gradually 

 widening as it descends, till it assumes the form of a small 

 Florence flask. The interior of this is rendered smooth, 

 uniform, and polished, in order to adapt it to the tapestry 

 with which it is intended to be hung, and which is the next 

 step in the process. 



The material used for tapestry by the insect upholsterer 

 is supplied by the flower-leaves of the scarlet field-poppy, 

 from which she successively cuts off small pieces of an oval 

 shape, seizes them between her legs, and conveys them to 



F 



