170 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis 
In 1919, circumstances were such that I could pay my 
first visit to the clay bank only on September 6. There- 
fore, I could not get their date of emergence, bunt they 
had left for me a clearly-written record of their abun- 
dance on the face of the bank. I counted 232 turrets,” 
which indicated that at least that number of mothers had 
been at work. Since a small portion of the mothers used 
the burrows without turrets, and since some may have 
been broken down, this is a conservative number. I am 
sure that none were from the previous year, for I had 
harvested the entire lot in the autumn for my cabinet 
and study. A recapitulation of the figures is of interest: 
in 1917, 22; 1918, 92; 1919, 232. 
In 1920, the first visit to the clay bank was made on 
May 28. Until 9:45 a. m. no bees appeared; then the 
sun warmed the bank and I saw two A. abrupta flying 
before the bank and entering numerous holes, one after 
the other. During the next fifteen minutes I sat before 
the bank and saw three others emerge from the burrows 
and dart away on the wing. The white faces of all five 
proved that they were males. A shrill voice within a 
burrow caused be to rivet my attention to a certain spot, 
where soon a sixth white face made its appearance. So 
here I was at hand for the first time to see the males 
emerge! There were no females about. There occurs 
in this species that which we see in so many species of 
insects—the priority of the emergence of the males. 
About noon the first female was seen going into burrow 
after burrow, and a little later a second one was doing 
precisely the same, while the males began to go away to 
*This had been an especially wet year and the bees could get 
water for digging. In dry years, as in 1922, hardly any of them 
made turrets. 
