130 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



little tunnels into the earth with astonishing ease. I once came 

 on a whole colony of the Andrena, in a peculiarly hard and 

 stony path near Dieppe. The ground was full of little holes, 

 from which the bees were continually issuing, and into which 

 others were as continually passing ; their bodies yellow with the 

 pollen of the flowers which they had been rifling, and which was 

 intended to serve as a provision for the future brood. 



An ordinary pocket-knife could make no impression on the 

 ground, mixed as it was with stones, trodden by daily traffic, 

 and baked by the heat of summer, into a mass nearly as hard as 

 brick, harder perhaps than the bricks that are employed for 

 modern houses. I was obliged, therefore, to return to my room 

 and fetch a great, rude, thick-bladed clasp-knife that was 

 reserved for rough work, and with much labour succeeded in 

 tracing several of the burrows. Tliey were sunk, on an average, 

 about eight inches into the gi-ound, and near the end they took 

 a sudden turn, and were ended by a rounded chamber, in which 

 was almost invariably a ball of pollen about as large as a pea. 

 No larva was found in any of the burrows. The whole of the 

 labour falls upon the female, the fore-legs of the male being 

 unable to dig, and the hind-legs unable to carry the pollen. 



The genus Andrena is of enormous extent, for in 1855, not 

 less than sixty-eight acknowledged species had been discovered 

 in England, and the number is probably increased after a space 

 of nearly ten years. 



One of the most interesting members of this family is the 

 pretty insect known by the name of Eucera longicornis, and 

 believed to be the only British representative of its genus. The 

 name longicornis, or long-horned, is derived from the very long 

 antennae of the male, which is also remarkable for a notch on the 

 first joint of the fore-legs. The use of this notch we shall pre- 

 sently see. Like the bees which have just been mentioned, the 

 Eucera digs a rather deep burrow, but prefers a clay soil. The 

 extremity of the burrow is widened into an oval cell, the walls of 

 which are beaten and pressed by the insect until they are quite 

 hard. The reason for this precaution is, that the ceU is stored 

 with a mixture of honey and pollen, which is of a semi-fluid 

 consistency, and would be absorbed by the earth if the walls of 

 the cell were not " puddled," as engineers call the operation. 



