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The Rose Garden. 



obliged to rest with its burden, and at all times when laden it is conspicuous and easily 

 captured. It is, however, possessed of a sting capable of inflicting sharp and lasting pain. 

 The amount of damage done sometimes in gardens by this insect is very considerable, and 

 the large pieces they carry away, combined with the frequency of their visits to a favourite 

 tree, render them more destructive than any single species of caterpillar. In a row of Pillar 

 Roses in these nurseries, which was sheltered from the north by a belt of trees, scarcely a 

 single plant remained one summer which was not subjected to its attacks. The branch 

 represented at Fig. 80 was taken from one of these Roses, and will serve to give an unex- 

 aggerated idea of the damage it is capable of inflicting. By the side of the branch will be 

 seen the bee itself, of life-size. It is rather more than half an inch in length ; the expanse 



Fig. 80. ROSE-CUTTER BEE, WITH BRANCH AFFECTED. 



of the fore wings seven-eighths of an inch. It is black-brown in colour ; the thorax is woolly, 

 the wings white veined with sepia. It is said to be common everywhere, most plentifully 

 throughout June. The best way of destroying it is by catching it with a net. An excellent 

 but rather laborious and not always practicable method is to trace the bee to its nest, and 

 by destroying the latter the appearance of a young brood will be prevented. The incisions 

 in the leaf made by this insect are very easily distinguished from those caused by cater- 

 pillars, being more circular and more dexterously and evenly cut, showing none of the 

 jagged edges visible on the edges of the part attacked by a caterpillar. In the summer of 

 1902 we found a nest of this species in a greenhouse wall between the plate and the brick- 



