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offspring. A few of the genera are considered parasitic, utilizing for their own progeny 

 the stores of honey and pollen so laboriously laid up by other species of bees. Such 

 worthless individuals are unprovided with instruments for gathering pollen, whereas those 

 which honestly toil to provide for the securing of their progeny, have brushes of stiff 

 hairs either on the legs or abdomen with which to gather and transport pollen. 



The females of Anthophora and Melisodes, resemble small humble bees, and have 

 stiff brushes on the hind legs for carrying pollen. They construct burrows in the earth 

 in which to deposit their eggs, each of which is placed in a ball of pollen and honey. 



The species of Andrena are numerous and the females transport their pollen by means 

 of the long hairs which clothe their thighs. They sink shafts in light soils to a depth of 

 a few inches, and at intervals make short side tunnels, each of which forms a cell for the 

 reception of an egg and its store of nourishment. This food is apparently gathered indis- 

 criminately from any flowering plant, even such kinds as sumac and poison-ivy are fully 

 garnered. 



Halictus also contains a number of small bees which it is difficult to distinguish from 

 the preceding, and which have the same habits almost. Some of the species are very 

 small — the smallest of our bees — and these usually have a semi-metallic lustre. The 

 larger species have bands of silvery hair across the abdomen. 



Our most brilliant bees are two species which belong to the genus Augochlora. They 

 are of a beautiful golden-green color, and may often be seen entering burrows in dead 

 wood, or may be captured upon the flowers which they visit for honey and pollen. Aga- 

 postemon tricolor is a closely allied and very pretty insect, easily distinguished by its tri- 

 colored markings of green, yellow and black. There are four or five species of pretty 

 little red bees, considered to be parasitic in their habits, which belong to Nomada. 

 i\T. americana has the abdomen entirely red ; the others have more or less distinct bands 

 or markings of yellow. 



The bees bel ongin g to th e genus Mega- 

 chile (Fig. 1\) M. brevis number fifteen 

 to twenty species, and have the very 

 interesting habit of forming the cells of 

 their nest with morsels of leaves. With 

 her long, sharp mandibles the female 

 cuts out, as quickly and perfectly as 

 with a pair of scissors, a portion of 

 the leave of a rose, maple, locust or 

 other plant, and grasping it with her 

 feet flies off to the hole that she has 

 chosen in some old log or stump. This 

 hole is lined internally with the pieces 

 of leaves, which form a cylinder, and 

 when a sufficient length for a cell has 

 been completed, a ball of honey and 

 pollen containing an egg is deposited 

 and the cell is covered by circular 

 morsels, and another commenced. This 

 process is continued until the hole or 

 crevice is filled. The labour thus performed by these " leaf-cutters " or upholstering bees" is 

 very great, for it requires the clipping and transportation of several hundreds of leaf frag- 

 ments. The Megachiles are larger than the bees of the preceding genera, and some equal the 

 honey bee in size. They are black with pubescence varying in colour, and on the under 

 part of the abdomen of the female the hairs are stiff and form a brush for the collection of 

 pollen. The males of many of the species have the anterior tarsi (feet), broadly dilated 

 and fringed with long hair, a character which makes them easily distinguishable. 



Osmia contains also a number of species in which the females have a brush under the 

 abdomen, but the insects have generally a more or less metallic, often greenish or bluish, 

 lustre, and have not the leaf cutting habits of the foregoing genus. They select for nesting 



Fig. 11. 



