Insects. 3253 



in this insect. I had strolled down to the beach on a rather doubtful- 

 looking morning, about 9 o'clock; not an insect was on the wing, so I 

 amused myself by turning over stones and rubbish in search of Coleo- 

 ptera. In so doing I caught sight of a queer-looking object hanging 

 from beneath the umbels of the wild carrot ; this was my friend the 

 Fcenus. He has a fancy for taking his repose in comfort; so he lays 

 fast hold of the plant with his mandibles, and hangs suspended by 

 them; the flat coronal of flowers hiding him from observation. There 

 is something ludicrous in his appearance, his neck seeming to be 

 stretched uncomfortably long, and his dilated posterior tibiae and ab- 

 domen apparently aiding in the elongation. Here they hung in plen- 

 ty, and I had only to unhook them and help myself at pleasure. 



This list of captures in the month of July, not the best, by any 

 means, for Hymenoptera, on the contrary one usually considered an 

 interregnum in the capture of that order, will I think prove satifacto- 

 rily that the Undercliff ranks somewhere about A. 1. as a locality. 

 Were this part of the Island well hunted over for these insects at all 

 seasons, I expect that it would not only yield most of the known 

 British species of Aculeata, but produce also a number not hitherto 

 captured in this country. Altogether I consider the collection which 

 I made in a week, as probably the finest yet made in the Island, and 

 an earnest of the rich stores which I feel confident future observation 

 will prove it to contain. Frederick Smith. 



August, 1851. 



On the Habits of Osmia parietina. By Frederick Smith, Esq., 

 Assistant in the Zoological Department, British Museum. 



Twenty years ago Mr. Curtis, in company with Mr. Dale, captured 

 a little bee at Ambleside, on the banks of Windermere, in Westmore- 

 land. At the time it does not appear to have been recognized as a 

 novelty. Mr. Dale informed me that the bee appeared to be plenti- 

 ful, and that it was flying about and settling upon a stone wall. Mr. 

 Curtis captured two or three in passing, and subsequently, on exami- 

 nation, it proved to be an undescribed species. This little bee was 

 figured by Mr. Curtis in the fifth volume of his ' British Entomology,' 

 under the name of Osmia parietina. 



A few months ago, Sir William Jardine forwarded two or three spe- 

 cimens of a bee to the British Museum, requesting to know the name; 

 these were males, and from a description in Zetterstedt, I concluded 



