AMERICAN EDITOR. 285 



Reaumur relates that a gardener at Rouen, once chanc- 

 ing to dig up the nest of a leaf-cutter bee, was so utterly 

 amazed with the singular skill of the contrivance that he 

 was terrified, and hastened with it to the priest of the 

 parish, believing it to be nothing less than the work of 

 witchcraft. Monsieur le Cure, it appears, had something 

 of the same suspicions ; he advised the man to carry the 

 nest to Paris ; the gardener, however, took it first to a dis- ' 

 tinguished Naturalist living at Rouen, who relieved the 

 poor fellow's mind by opening one of the cases and 

 showing him the grub within. 



We learn that there are several leaf-cutting or up- 

 holsterer bees, in the United States, although it is not 

 probable that either is precisely similar to that alluded to 

 by Mr. Knapp, and the author of Acheta Domestica. 



NOTE E. 



THE ROSE-BEETLE, (Cetonia Aurata,) p. 53. 

 The Rose-Chafer, or Rose-Beetle, the Cetonia aurata of 

 entomologists, is a beautiful insect, very common in Eng- 

 land but unknown in our own country. "On the back of 

 the corslet burnished green and gold are the prevailing 

 hues, on breast-plate, cuisse, and gauntlet the lustre of the 

 precious metal is predominant, mingled with changeable 

 reflections of purplish crimson," says the writer of Acheta 

 Domestica. " Like the rest of its tribe, this pretty beetle un- 

 dergoes the usual triple metamorphosis of insect life. From 

 an egg laid within the earth, he emerges a grub or larva, 

 to feed on roots, most usually those of the rose. * * 

 Thus, hermit-like, and upon this hermit's fare, he lives 

 in dark seclusion for four years, and when these are over, 

 constructs for himself, about the month of March, a still 

 more straitened cell an earth-formed case, resembling a 



