NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH BEES. 167 



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(Nudipedes), by reason of their parasitisTiij they not re- 

 quiring organs to collect what they have no occasion 

 to use. Their parasitism extends both upwards and 

 downwards, those with three submarginal cells being 

 parasitical upon all the brush-legged bees, whether sub- 

 normal Andrenidee or the ScopuUpedes, those with two 

 submarginal cells being restricted ia their parasitism to 

 the Dasygasters. 



These Dasygasters, or hairy-bellied bees, form the 

 next very natural group. Their general peculiarity of 

 structure I have had occasion to advert to, in treating, 

 in a former section of the work, upon the structure of 

 the imago, and to which I now refer to avoid repetition. 

 This group contains the majority of the artisan bees, 

 whose habits I shall particularize when I speak of the 

 genera specially; but we find carpenters amongst the 

 ScopuUpedes, and essentially builders amongst the Ceno- 

 bites, which form a further and the last of our natural 

 groups. A true cuckoo-bee {Apathus) consorts amongst 

 these Cenobites, and properly so, from many causes. 

 The anomaly would have been too great to have removed 

 it to a place amongst the Nudipedes, for although in 

 obsolete paraglossse, and in a deficiency in the normal 

 number of the joints of the maxillary palpi, it resembles 

 some of these, its general habit and general structure, 

 bating that controlled by its parasitical habits, are so 

 like Bombus, that it cannot well be separated far from 

 the latter, — especially as we know too little of its habits 

 to say that it does not regularly dwell in the nest of its 

 sitos, which may well mistake it for one of its own com- 

 munity, it resembling the species it infests so closely ; 

 it therefore consistently associates systematically with 

 the temporarily social societies. 



