388 NOTES ON THE HABITS OF INSECTS. 



innumerable Tijmlidce and many Coleoptera, as Myceicca 

 fuviata, several Anobia and Ptinl, Sphceriestes ^-jyustulaius, 

 &c., whose history, had I time, I might perhaps detail. 



" Verum haec ipse equidem, spatiis exclusus iniquis, 

 Prsetereo, atque aliis post commemoranda relinquo." 



I am not quite sure tliat this bee does not bore holes into 

 posts, &c., but it mostly chooses an old bolt-hole, a hollow in 

 a wall where the mortar has fallen out, or, where bees are kept, 

 the space between the hive and the pan usually placed as 

 covering on the top. 



The appearance of the male is generally synchronous with 

 that of Anthophora retusa and the flowering of the bulbous 

 fumitory. The female is rather later, and is not generally out 

 before the flowering of the plum, or even apple, in the blos- 

 soms of which she seems to take great delight. The weather 

 at this time is often stormy, and then we frequently see her 

 alight on the ground, pick up two or three grains of coarse 

 sand and fly off" with them. Virgil probably mistook this insect 

 for a hive-bee, no doubt from seeing it fly to his hives, the 

 construction of which would just suit our insect. He says — 



lapillos 



Ut cymbae instabiles fluctu jactante saburram 

 Tollunt : his sese per inania nubila librant." 



I have read somewhere of a very learned friar, I forget hia 

 name, who was so thin and light in his body (a rara avis truly 

 he must have been), that he always in windy weather flUed his 

 pockets with pebbles lest he should be blown away, but I 

 much doubt whether any bee ever carried stones for the same 

 purpose. 



The real object of her carrying them is the formation of her 

 nidus, which is composed of a number of separate oval cells, 

 consisting entirely of clay and sand, glued together with her 

 saliva, and disposed irregularly according as she best can find 

 room to place them. However close they may be to each 

 other, she never makes the side of one cell serve also for 

 another; each cell, though mostly touching, is quite distinct 

 from its neighbours, — a waste of materials we do not often 

 observe in nature. When all the cells (which are about twenty 

 or thirty in number) are completed, she covers the whole of 

 the exposed parts with a coating of the same materials as she 



