290 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Nov., '03 



known names to some of our common species in preference to 

 those new and untried, and which are liable to change with 

 the next revision of the group or genus to which they belong. 

 Life is too short to spend much of it in following out the end- 

 less number of synonyms that are being constantly added to 

 our lists of insects, if one expects to do anything else, espe- 

 cially as these changes are wholly matters of opinion and the 

 reason for which seems to exist only in the eyes of the persons 

 responsible for them. 



Nests of Agenia Architecta Say. 



By S. Arthur Johnson. 



While collecting the nests of Anthophora occidentalis last 

 winter, I came upon a number of nests of the. above species. 

 They were formed within the tunnels of Anthophora, which 

 are about lomm. in diameter, the first cell being attached to 

 the tunnel wall by a curved base. The cells are joined end to 

 end, run lengthwise the tunnel, and number from two to five 

 in each series. One tunnel furnished three parallel series of 

 cells. The imago makes its exit by breaking through the 

 lateral wall of the cell instead of the end as in most species 

 of bees and wasps. 



Say (Vol. I, p. 303) gives the following description of the 

 nest. 



' * The insect forms neat mud nests under prostrate logs and 

 stones. They consist of short cylinders, agglutinated together 

 alternately, and each composed of little pellets of mud, com- 

 pressed or rather appressed to each other. When these are 

 adjUvSted to their places on the edge of the cylinder, each has 

 a fusiform shape, and the slender end of one laps over that of 

 another, and the convex part of the pellet of the succeeding 

 layer is placed against this duplicature, so as to restore the 

 equality of the edge. This arrangement gives the surface an 

 alternate appearance. ' ' 



Adult insects bred from the cells were determined by H. T. 

 Fernald and photographs of the nests and wasp made by C. 

 P. Gillette. 



