HYMENOPTERA. 461 



X violacea, L. About one inch in len^h; black, with violet-black wings, 

 a russet ring round tlie antennae of the male. The female bores a long 

 vertical hole in the body she has selected, usually old dry wood exposed 

 to the sun, and pai-allel to its surface. It is divided into several cells by 

 horizontal septa formed with agglutinated raspings of wood. She then, 

 commencing with the lowest, deposits an egg and some paste in each of 

 them. She sometimes bores three canals in the same piece of wood. 



There are several other genera of solitary Apiai-iae. 



The last of the Apiarise form communities composed of maZes and /twia/es, 

 and a considerable number of neuters or labourers. In tlie internal face of 

 the posterior tibiae of these latter individuals is a smooth depression, in 

 which they place the pellet of pollen collected with the silken down or 

 brush attached to the inner side of the first joint of the tarsi of the same 

 \q^. The maxillary palpi are veiy small and formed of a single joint. The 

 antennae are geniculate. 



Sometimes the posterior tibiae are terminated by two spines, as in 



BoMDus, Lat. Fab. 



Where the labrum is transversal, the pseudo-proboscis is much shorter 

 than the body, and the second joint of the labial palpi terminates in a point, 

 bearing the two others on its outer side. 



These Insects(l) are well known to children, who frequently put them 

 to death in order to obtain the honey contained within their body. They 

 inhabit subterranean nests in communities of fifty or sixty, and sometimes 

 of two or three hundred individuals. The society is dissolved on the ap- 

 proach of winter. It is composed of males, distinguished by their small 

 size, reduced head, narrow mandibles, bearded, and terminated by two 

 teeth, and frequently by a difference of colours; of females, which are 

 larger than the others, furnished with mandibles formed like a spoon, as is 

 also the case with those of the neuters or labourers,- the latter, as to size, are 

 intermediate between the males and females. 



Such of the ordinary females as have escaped the severity of the winter 

 take advantage of the first fine weather to construct their nests. One spe- 

 cies — Apis lapidaria — establishes itself on the surface of the earth under 

 stones, but all the others form their habitation in it, frequently descending 

 to a depth of one or two feet, in the way we are about to describe. Dry 

 plains, fields, and hills are the locaUties they select. These subterranean 

 cavities, which are of considerable extent and wider than high, have the 

 figure of a dome. The ceiling is constructed with earth and with moss, 

 carded by these Insects, which they transport there, fibre by fibre, entering 

 the cavity backwards. A coating of coarse wax is laid over its walls. Some- 

 times a simple opening, designedly left at the bottom of the nest, serves 



(I) They are commonly confounded with the Xylocopae, and are also 

 called Humbk-Bees. 



