176 : THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
burrows were several large specimens of Sphecodes rufescens, 
busily hunting about the burrows, the entrances to which 
were not exposed, but each was covered by a little heap of 
dry dust, which is pushed out by the insect when forming the 
hole. Presently I saw a female Andrena turn its head down- 
wards into one of the little heaps of dust, as they did when 
they wanted to enter the burrow; at the same instant up flew 
a Sphecodes, and, by tugging at its legs and wings, tried to 
pull the Andrena out, which at last—l suppose annoyed by 
the persistence of the Sphecodes—turned out and flew away, 
when the latter quartered the ground in all directions, as if 
searching for something it had lost, and, not being successful, 
prepared to fly away, when I captured it. These Sphecodes 
were large, and fairly corresponded in size to the Andrena, 
but there were no small ones about; and, as far as my 
recollection goes, | have not found large Sphecodes without 
finding large Halicti or Andrenz in its vicinity, and small 
Sphecodes without small Halicti. Of course this may be 
only a coincidence, although I think it is more than that. 
Mr. Smith tells me he has seen them burrowing. ‘This 
certainly goes far to prove that they are constructive bees; 
but still my opinion is that they are not so. 
In the early spring I was struck with the enormous 
quantity of female wasps that were met with in every 
direction. ‘This was not confined to this district, as many 
correspondents to the gardeners’ periodicals noticed the 
same thing. One of them, who signs himself, “ P. Grieve, 
Bury St. Edmunds,” writing to the ‘ Gardeners’ Chronicle’ of 
June 19th, says:—“ It has been his duty for the last twenty- 
eight years to count the slain wasps and hornets, for which 
one penny each is given, up to the end of the month of May. 
This season the numbers reached the enormous quantity of 
two thousand five hundred aud sixty-six, and the sum paid 
for them was £10 13s. 10d.; about five or six per cent. of 
them were hornets. The numbers captured during the former 
seasons has varied from five hundred to six hundred, up to 
the unprecedented number of the present season.” Several 
others have given statistics of numbers killed or paid for, all 
proving that the number of these insects has been enormous. 
The nests, however, in this neighbourhood, as far as my 
observation has gone, were not so plentiful as [ expected they 
