38 Trans. Acad, of St. Louis 



and very often appropriated a bee for a meal, but more 

 often the male bees would alight upon their backs with 

 antics which were very suggestive of attempts at mating. 

 Strange, that they should fall upon every larger intruder 

 or stranger which came among them, and even crowded 

 about one of their own number, when it stopped to rest. 

 The excitement ran high, but all of the foregoing activity 

 was as naught when a female Colletes, heavily laden with 

 pollen, alighted in their midst. (When I saw this 

 creature, I was sure that all the others were males). A 

 half dozen males alighted on her back at one time, and 

 after much tumbling and rolling about one male accom- 

 plished the mating which lasted for fully two minutes, 

 while the others showered her with attentions. So many 

 attempted mating after the successful suitor had left that 

 she was soon so weakened that she could not fly, and even 

 as she slowly walked out of the crowd her very appear- 

 ance so excited the others that they made life so miser- 

 able for her that I interfered. These bees had undoubt- 

 edly come from a distance to this area, for all summer up 

 to a short time previously, the sandbar had been com- 

 pletely under water. 



Colletes inaequalis [J. C. Crawford]. A female of 

 this species was taken out of her burrow at Clitf Cave 

 on April 7, 1915. The hole went straight down into the 

 ground for seven inches; its diameter was about one- 

 fourth inch, and it had a neat mound of earth around its 

 entrance. The mother was found alone at the bottom of 

 the burrow. 



Megachile generosa Cress. [J. C. Crawford]. A 

 female was seen at Moselle on June 30, 1916, carrying 

 bits of green leaves under a loose clod of earth in a 

 recently cultivated field. After she had been watched 

 for several trips, she was captured and the clod removed. 

 A neatly formed cup, made of bits of leaves cut with her 

 madiblesy (PI. V, fig. 2) was disclosed. Since the leaf- 

 cutter bees are known to build in hollow twigs, an occur- 



