258 BRITISH BEES. 



form. What can be the uses of these spines? They 

 can hardly be for defence, although an entomologist 

 has said that a male which he held endeavoured to 

 pincb by that means. We find similar processes in 

 the same situation in Coslioxys, equally a parasitical 

 genus; but the former genus infests the Scopulipedes 

 and the latter the Dasygasters, whose economies are 

 so very different, and thus it, can hardly be supposed 

 to have reference to habits. In Epeolus and Stelis the 

 same part is mucronated, a tendency to which we see in 

 the NomadcB with subclavate antennae. Under Antho- 

 phora I have given an account of the pugnacious spirit 

 of these insects in their contests with the sitos, and it is 

 necessary to be cautious in handling them, as they sting 

 very severely. Our two native species are parasitical 

 upon the two species of the first division of Anthophora, 

 — those which are gregarious. The circumstance of Me- 

 lecta being often caught with many of the extremely 

 young larvae of Meloe upon it seems to confirm the fact 

 of this coleopterous insect preying upon Anthophora, as 

 it may be thus assumed to prey simultaneously upon the 

 larva of Melecta. I have never captured these insects 

 upon flowers, nor can I trace what flowers they fre- 

 quent, although Latreille tells us, in the name he has 

 imposed, that they are honey collectors ; but Curtis re- 

 ports that he has found the genus upon the common 

 furze or whin [Ulex Europaus). 



Genus 16. Epeolus, Latreille. 

 (Plate XI. fig. 2 (? ? .) 

 Apis ** I, Kirby. 

 Gen. Char. : Body glabrous. Head transverse^ ver- 



