498 ON THE HABITS OF SOME SPECIES OF BEES. 



Willughbiellct, but is rather less ; the anterior tarsi, though 

 dilated, are not so broad as in that species. The terminal 

 joint of the antenna is likewise, as in M. Willughbiellct, larger 

 than the rest, but differs in being rather shorter : the head is 

 furnished with pale brown hair anteriorly, and the vertex with 

 hair of a sooty-black colour : on the thorax and two basal seg- 

 ments of the abdomen, the hair is of a reddish-brown colour, 

 and on the apical segments of the latter, black : the underside 

 of the body is furnished with ashy pubescence. Such is the 

 colouring of the specimens which I afterwards reared, — but the 

 pubescence was nearly of an uniform greyish cast in most of 

 those caught at large. The nests of these insects are generally 

 placed about six inches in the ground, and in a light soil, and 

 consist of three or four cylindrical cells joined end to end. 

 The perfect insect, when hatched, eats its way through the 

 side of the cell near the top. I have reared many specimens 

 of both sexes ; — the eggs are laid in June, the insect has 

 undergone all its transformations by the month of September, 

 and remains in a torpid state until the following June. b I set 

 many specimens at liberty (by opening their cells) in the 

 winter; the room being warm they crawled about pretty 

 briskly, but were not able to fly. 



June 19, 1835, caught several specimens of Ccelioxys 

 conica of both sexes ; they were flying about the nests of the 

 Megachile above-mentioned, (M. circumcincta). I observed 

 a female enter a hole, and was just about to put my net over 

 the place to secure it, when to my surprise a female Megachile 

 entered the same hole. It was a minute before either came out ; 

 theCtelioxys came first but escaped from me ; the other I caught. 



Sept. 1885, found, upon looking in my breeding - cage, 

 that the larvae which were in the cocoons of the Megachile had 

 all assumed the imago state ; some few had made their escape 

 from the cells and were found dead in the breeding-cage, — 

 among them there was a specimen of Ccelioxys conica, also 

 dead. c From this it is pretty evident that this species of 



b I have reared many species of bees, of both the families Apidoe and Andre- 

 nida, and invariably found that they had undergone all their transformations by 

 the autumn. 



As this species of Ccelioxys abounds in neighbourhoods where M. circumcincta 

 is not found, it may be thought I make some mistake in the species ; hence I will 

 send this, and all other species mentioned in these Notes, to the Entomo- 

 logical Society's Collection, where they may be examined by any entomologist. 



