Insects. 609 



the inside with salt and peach-leaves, the smell of which was consi- 

 dered attractive to bees. None of us were stung, except one of the 

 negroes, and he before they began to cut into the hollow. 



P. H. Gosse. 

 Kentish Town, June 8, 1844. 



Notes on Osmia tunensis and O. bicolor, bred from Snail-shells. The bee which you 

 forwarded to me for inspection, together with the snail-shell figured in your pages 

 (Zool. 330), proves to be the Osmia tunensis. I have just received some shells con- 

 taining cocoons, and also some specimens of the same bee from a gentleman of Clifton, 

 Bristol, from whose interesting information I am enabled to give the following account 

 of the bee. This gentleman has bred the insect from the shells of two species of He- 

 lix — H. nemoralis and H. aspersa. In the shell of the former I found five cocoons, 

 the shell of the latter, being the largest species, sometimes contains as many as six. 

 Between the cocoons is a division about the thickness of a common address-card. The 

 cocoons resemble those of Osmia cornuta, being of a toughish texture, dark brown and 

 highly polished within. The entrance to the shell is closed by the parent bee with ag- 

 glutinated sand, but the divisions between the cocoons are of some vegetable prepara- 

 tive, . Q scrapings from the stems or leaves of plants Sec. The shells were collected 

 about the middle of March ; those containing 0. bicolor produced the bee at the end 

 of the same month, 0. tunensis a fortnight later. Who does not admiringly wonder 

 at the surprising instinct which teaches these bees that the shells are exactly adapted 

 to their purposes of economy ! for I have watched the same bee (O. tunensis) indus- 

 triously excavating her burrow in an old post; but she also avails herself of a spiral 

 tube ready prepared for her purpose, totally differing from the burrow she would ex- 

 cavate herself. Osmia bicolor I have observed entering her burrow formed in the per- 

 pendicular side of a sand-pit at Gravesend. — Fred. Smith; April 22, 1844. 



Note on Bees and Laurel-trees. Last week, during a visit to Herefordshire, my at- 

 tention was drawn to a fact which has not, I think, been recorded, and I shall be glad 

 to have the opinion of your readers upon it. At the back of nearly every leaf of the 

 common laurel, I observed two or three small holes penetrating through the cuticle, 

 and when newly made allowing the sap to exude. At the same time, numerous hive 

 bees were seen about the tree, and upon further notice it was seen that the bees went 

 to the above mentioned wounds in the leaf and applied their proboscis to them, appa- 

 rently sucking up the sap of the laurel. I wish to learn if this has been before ob- 

 served, and if the use to which the bees apply the laurel-sap is known. I have not 

 now time to look through books on the subject. The wounds were always (I believe) 

 situated on the under side of the leaf, close to the midrib and near to the petiole, — 

 Charles C. Babington ; St. John's College , Cambridge, May, 1844. 



Notice of a singular gregarious Caterpillar of a Tenthredo. At a meeting of the Lin- 

 nean Society held on the 6th of February, 1844, a paper was read, entitled " Descrip- 

 tions of the Nests of two Hymenopterous Insects inhabiting Brazil, and of the species 

 by which they were constructed." By John Curtis, Esq., F.L.S. Mr. Curtis obtained 

 the materials for this paper from a collection in the possession of Lord Goderich, to 

 whom it had been presented by the Right Hon. Henry Ellis, on his eturn from his 



