Bees and their Counterfeits. 167 



adopting the deserted work of some other insect, or taking 

 advantage of an accidental hollow. For instance, Anthidium 

 manicatum, one of our summer bees, generally uses the holes 

 bored in willow stumps by the Oossus lignvperda ; but a nest of 

 this species was once found, as described by Mr. F. Smith, in 

 the keyhole of a garden door. Some of the humble bees, on 

 the other hand, carefully construct their own burrow. A beau- 

 tiful exotic species, a large and powerful bee, has received the 

 specific name of Latipes, from the singular broadening and 

 strengthening of the front pair of feet. These broadened feet 

 assume somewhat of the character of the front feet of the mole, 

 or rather those of that curious insect the mole cricket. These 

 enlarged feet, with the thick brushes of strong hairs with 

 which they are furnished, are evidently excavating implements, 

 and no doubt the works produced by their agency are of a very 

 interesting kind ; but entomological discovery has not at present 



made us acquainted with the nest architecture of this handsome 

 insect. A pretty little English bee, one of the solitary kinds, 

 often makes its burrow in sheltered parts of hard gravel walks, 

 an affair evidently of very great labour, as the female bee, who 

 is the sole architect in this instance, frequently comes to the 

 opening of the burrow to rest, when the male commences flying 

 rapidly round and round his mate with great rapidity, as though 

 to encourage her to renew the task. 



I am not aware whether the nest of the little bee of the 

 gravel walk is subject to the visits of a parasitic cousin, but 

 among those most subject to intruders of this kind is that of the 

 common garden humble-bee, Bombus hortorum. In the en- 

 graving above, this pretty bee (Fig. 1) is engraved side by 

 side with its parasite, Apathus barbutellus (Fig. 2). These bees 

 bear such a generally close resemblance to. each other, that one 

 may easily be mistaken for the other, even by the initiated, till 



