(212 ~=«~W. EZ. Patton— Observations on the genus Macropis. 
to ask whether the glands with which the filaments and base 
of the corolla are beset may not furnish the nectar. In the 
American 2. etlata, LZ. quadrifolia and ZL. stricta, and on the 
filaments at least of the European JZ. vulgaris the glands are 
very numerous. But upon the flowers of stricta and quadriolia 
the Macropis has not yet been found, although the flowers have 
been often watched ; it seems, therefore, that the glands afford 
no attraction. We must conclude that it is with nectar that 
the pollen is moistened ; and as it has been my good fortune to 
distinctly observe a female Macropis sucking nectar from the 
flowers of Rhus glabra, it is, evidently, from these and other 
flowers that the Macropis obtains the honey for the food both of 
itself and its young. 
But why does the Macropis moisten the pollen as it is col- 
lected? This is an unusual habit. The social bees moisten it 
in order that it may be retained on the pollen plates. The 
Scopulipede and Gastrilege bees retain the dry pollen with the 
hairs forming the pollen brushes. The Zysimachia pollen is 
not of so dry a nature that hairs would not hold it. An alto- 
gether new interest was given to the genus Macropis by 
Hermann Miiller’s observation that it alone of all the solitary 
bees of Germany moistened the pollen as collected, thus econ- 
omizing in the expanse of hairs upon the legs.* The retaining 
+x c., p. 47, and Anw. d. 
Nature, vol. x, p. 103. These observations 
Cont : ‘ : ? 
In is, aS in our native 
