REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST I913 



65 



morocco, occasionally invading the sheepskin and working mostly 

 on the inner face of the leather, partly on account of the protection 

 afforded and presumably attracted somewhat by the glue used in 

 binding the book. Attacks of this kind are evidently unusual and 

 can generally be avoided by examination from time to time and 

 fumigation, if necessary, 

 with either carbon bisul- 

 phid or hydrocyanic acid 

 gas. 



Mason bee ( O s m i a 

 f elti Ckll. 1 ). Very lit- 

 tle is apparently known 

 concerning the habits of 

 this genus, though the re- 

 lated leaf cutter bees, 

 Megachile, commonly at- 

 tract notice because of the 

 characteristic circular or 

 nearly circular pieces so 

 frequently cut from rose 

 and other leaves and used 

 by these insects in the 

 construction of larval 

 cells, the latter being 

 placed end to end and 

 located sometimes in the 

 ground, usually in bur- 

 rows in the wood, and 

 even in crevices such as 

 those occurring between 

 shingles in a bunch or on 

 a roof. 



A number of small bees 

 were observed June 18, 

 1902, around a circular Fig. 12 Galleries of a mason bee, O s m i a 

 entrance in the thick bark f e 1 1 i , in hard pine (natural size, original) 

 of a hard pine at Karner, 



and on capturing specimens and submitting them to Prof. T. D. A. 

 Cockerell, an authority on this group, they were described by him 

 as new. An examination of the galleries showed a circular entrance 



1911 Ent. News, 21 :i8. 



