4878 Notices of New Books. 



entitled to be considered a perfect monograph, yet the others are of 

 incalculable value to the student, and now form a key to the know- 

 ledge of the animal world. I believe the whole of them are issued at 

 the mere cost of printing and paper, in order that naturalists may 

 derive the greatest possible amount of benefit from their publication. 



In support of my unqualified commendation of Mr. Smith's volume 

 I proceed to make a copious extract, which I trust will be read by 

 others with the same pleasure that it has given me, premising, how- 

 ever, that I purpose returning again to these bees, and giving a some- 

 what more systematic account of their methodical arrangement, and 

 adding to Mr. Smith's labours a running accompaniment of my own. 

 The passage relates to the species of Andrena. 



" These bees are subject to the attacks of parasites : the first to be 

 remarked upon are those bees which compose the genus Nomada ; 

 they are more popularly known as wasp-bees, since they bear a con- 

 siderable resemblance to some of the small solitary species of that 

 family. These parasites appear to be upon a perfectly friendly foot- 

 ing with the industrious bees, and are permitted, without let or hin- 

 drance, to enter their burrows. It has been advanced as a proof of 

 the ingenuity and artifice necessary to be employed in effecting the 

 deposit of their eggs in the working bees' nests, that the parasites 

 should bear a close resemblance to the bees upon which they are 

 parasitic : some instances may undoubtedly be advanced, as Apathus 

 and Bombus, and also in the different species of Volucella which 

 infest the nests of humble-bees, but amongst the solitary bees no such 

 resemblance is required to aid in any necessary deception. It may 

 be remarked that the two cases are not analogous : this is true ; and 

 I am not prepared to say that in the case of the Bombi and their ene- 

 mies it may not be necessary, but as regards solitary bees it certainly 

 is not; — colonies of Andrenidae and their parasites mingle together in 

 perfect harmony, issuing from and entering into the burrows indiscri- 

 minately. I have on several occasions watched with much enjoyment a 

 large colony of Eucera longicornis, the males occasionally darting 

 forwards with great velocity, then turning sharply round, and as it 

 were swimming in circles close to the ground, then darting off again 

 and again in an unceasing round of sportive enjoyment; their indus- 

 trious partners, whose whole existence appears to be bound up in one 

 unceasing round of labour, would occasionally return home laden with 

 food for their young progeny. Sometimes it would happen that a 

 Nomada had previously entered her nest; when such proved to b< 

 the case, she would issue from it, and, flying off to a short distance, 



