Xtlocopa.- 



-raSECTS.- 



-Anthididm. 



197 



pieces of leaf to form one cell. As soon as one of these 

 is completed, the hee collects houey and pollen, which 

 she places at the bottom, and on this provender, pro- 

 vided for its young, she deposits an egg. She covers 

 the shell with pieces of leaf, so cut as to fit it exactly, 

 and then commences to form another similar cell above 

 it. This bee usually makes its nest in holes in decayed 

 wood, though it also constructs them in holes in walls 

 and in pathways. 



Genus Xylocopa {Wood-cut ki- Bee). — In India 

 and Ceylon, as I have been told, window and door 

 frames are often perfectly riddled by a species of this 

 genus. Dr. Clcghora once asked me how their ravages 

 could bo stopped. " By employing iron frames," I 

 might have replied. The Xyloco2M violacea, a large 

 species, and with wings of a deep violet colour, I first 

 saw flying about the flowers in the window of the 

 modest home of Serville, the French entomologist, 

 when I visited Paris in 1841. This bee is found cora- 

 monl)' in gardens ; it burrows in the upright jjutresoent 

 espaliers or vine-props, occasionally in the garden 

 seats, doors, and window shutters. In the beginning 

 of spring, after repeated and careful surveys, she fixes 

 upon a piece of wood suitable for her purpose, and 

 with her strong mandibles begins the process of boring. 

 First proceeding obliquely downwards, she soon points 

 her course in a direction parallel with the sides of tlie 

 wood, and at length, with unwearied exertion, forms a 

 cylindrical hole or tunnel not less than twelve or 

 fifteen inches long and half an inch broad. Where 

 tlie diameter will admit of it, three or four of these 

 pipes, nearly parallel with each other, are bored in tlie 

 same piece. As yet she has completed but the shell 

 of the destined habitation of her olfspring; each of 

 which, to the number of ten or twelve, will require a 

 separate and distinct apartment. How, you will ask, 

 is she to form these ? With what materials can she 

 construct the floors and ceilings? Why, truly God 

 " doth instruct her to discretion and doth teach her." 

 In excavating her tunnel she has detached a large 

 quantity of fibres, which lie on the ground like a heap 

 of saw-dust. This material supplies all her wants. 

 Having deposited an egg at the bottom of the cjdinder 

 along with the requisite store of pollen and honey, she 

 next, at the height of about three quarters of an inch, 

 which is the depth of each cell, constructs of particles 

 of the saw-dust glued together, and also to the sides 

 of the tunnel, what may be called an annular stage 

 or soaflblding. When this is sufBciently hardened, its 

 interior edge affords support for a second ring of the 

 same materials, and tlius the ceiling is gradually formed 

 of these concentric circles, till there remains only a 

 . small orifice in its centre, which is also closed with a 

 circular mass of agglutinated particles of saw-dust. 

 When this partition, which serves as the ceiling of the 

 first cell and the flooring of the second, is finished, it is 

 about the thickness of a crowu-piece, and exhibits the 

 appearance of as many concentric circles as the animal 

 has made pauses in her labour. One cell being finished, 

 she proceeds to another, which she furnishes and com- 

 pletes in the same manner ; and so on until she has 

 divided her whole tunnel into ten or twelve apartments. 

 Here, if you have foUowed me in this detail with 



the interest which I wish it to inspire, a query will 

 suggest itself. Every cell requires a store of honey 

 and pollen, not to be collected but with long toil, and 

 that a considerable interval must be spent in aggluti- 

 nating the floors of each, it will be very obvious to you 

 that the last egg in the last cell must be laid many 

 days after the first. We are certain, therefore, that 

 the first egg will become a grub, and consequently a 

 perfect bee, many days before the last. What then 

 becomes of it? you will ask. It is impossible that it 

 should make its escape through eleven superincumbent 

 cells without destroying the immature tenants ; and it 

 seems equally impossible that it should remain patiently 

 in confinonient below them until they are all disclosed. 

 This dilemma our heaven-taught architect has provided 

 against. With forethought never enough to be admired, 

 she has not constructed her tunnel with one opening 

 only, but at the further end has pierced another orifice, 

 a kind of back door, through which the insects produced 

 by the first laid eggs successively emerge into da}'. In 

 fact, all the young bees, even the uppermost, go out by 

 this road ; for, by an exquisite instinct each grub, when 

 about to become a pupa, places itself in its ceU with 

 its head downwards, and thus is necessitated, wdien 

 arrived at its last stage, to pierce its cell in this direc- 

 tion. Much of this is compiled from the great work 

 of Reaumur. 



Genus Anthidium. — White, in his Natural History 

 of Selborne, says, " There is a sort of wild bee fre- 

 quenting the garden campion for the sake of its 

 tomentum, which probably it turus to some purpose 

 in the business of nidification. It is very pleasant to 

 see with what address it strips off the pubes, running 

 from the top to the bottom of a branch, and shaving it 

 bare with the dexterity of a hoop-shaver. When it has 

 got a vast bundle, almost as large as itself, it flies 

 away, holding it secure between its chin and its fore- 

 legs." The bee so graphically alluded to is the Antla- 

 dium manicatum, the abdomen of which is spotted on 

 the side with yellow, and the male of wdiich has the 

 abdomen inflexed at the end, and armed with five 

 spines. It is truly a summer bee — which docs not 

 appear before the end of June or the beginning of July. 

 The burrow in wdiich its nest is placed is not constructed 

 by itself, but it uses any hole which it finds adapted for 

 its purpose ; its nests are frequently found in holes 

 bored in old willow-stumps by the Goat Moth. The 

 chamber being formed, the bee collects a quantity of 

 down from woolly-stemmed plants, with which she 

 forms an outer coating. She then constructs a number 

 of cells for the reception of the pollen or food of the 

 larva. They consist of a woolly material, mixed with 

 some glutinous matter, which resists the moisture of 

 the food it contains, and in which the larva, on being 

 full fed, spins a brown silken cocoon ; the sexes dilfcr 

 from most other bees in the males being much larger 

 than the females. 



Linna;us described a species of the genus Chclos- 

 toma under the name of Apis florisomnin, the male 

 of that species frequently being found in the petals 

 of flowers, whore it passes the night, while the second 

 British species {Chdostoma campamdaruni) frequents 

 the pretty hare hell. The species of this genus make 



