180 MESSRS. C. HORNE AND F. SMITH ON HYMENOPTERA 
female then lays an egg on the top of the same, and doth male and female set to work 
gnawing at the interior near the mouth of the opening of the bamboo for saw-dust. 
This they work up with some viscous fluid which is ejected from the mouth, and form 
therewith a firm floor for the next cell. This floor is much thicker at the sides, where 
it joins the bamboo, than in the middle: the perfect insect, when emerging, has strong 
jaws, and his head is in the middle of the cell; he can therefore easily moisten and cut 
through this thin centre. 
The cocoon is very strongly spun; and a long time elapses ere the perfect insect 
emerges. After all the work is finished (and these insects generally cease working at 
the end of October), they appear to retire into hollow bamboos to hybernate or die. 
Later on in the season I have opened bamboos and found six or seven, one after another, 
all dead; whilst at other times I have found them in a state of stupor caused by the 
cold. The young, I have reason to believe, do not come out until the spring. Their 
chief enemy is a species of Calionyx, of which three were hatched, together with about 
fourteen bees, from one series of cells. 
This species often burrows in soft “ seenul” wood (Bombax heptaphyllum) (which is 
used in the building of outhouses), and can then be detected by the heap of coarse 
raspings under the hole. ‘The bee-bread is very pleasant to the taste, with a slight 
subacid, and keeps good for a very long time. I am not aware that this bee ever works 
in living timber. 
The insect in the larva-state is often destroyed by a minute Chalcididous insect of the 
genus Eucyrtus. From one single specimen I bred 500 of these insects ; and two-thirds 
of those I tried to rear were destroyed by them. 
*Mainpuri, July 10, 1865.—I was somewhat interested to-day in watching the 
shower of lovely yellow blossoms falling from a fine bush of a beautiful flower, and by 
observing how it was caused. I noticed the large black Bee (Xylocopa chloroptera) 
cutting the tube of the corolla, and inserting its tongue for the honey which abounded 
there; the flower immediately after fell; and amongst the hundreds on the ground I 
could not find one which was not so bitten.” 
XYLOCOPA ZsTUANS, Linn. 
The habits of this insect are so exactly like those of X. chloroptera that they need 
little further account. They use bamboos for their cells, and make divisions with 
raspings from the interior. I found three or four of these bees in company with three 
or four of X. chloroptera in the same hollow bamboo. When they cannot find a 
bamboo, they use any hole in a post or tree for the construction of their cells. I have 
also found them dead in bamboos, whither they had resorted to hybernate or die; but 
as their pup remain a very long time in their cases ere they emerge, the supply in 
any case is well kept up, and the insect isa common one. Various species of Anthrax 
and Celiorys are their great parasitical enemies. 
