MEGACHILE CENTUNCULARIS. 453 



small, and not broad as in the wasp. The two middle legs have a vast 

 quantity of hair upon them, which made me call them ' feathered- 

 legged,' but this may belong to the male only 1 . 



[Osmia ?] 



In July I observed a small bee, less than the common, and not so 

 brown, but of a greyish colour, with farina upon its legs ; it went into a 

 hole in a brick wall, but not out of sight : next day I observed the 

 mouth of the hole was closed up. I broke it down, and the day follow- 

 ing it was again shut up. A month after I opened the hole by taking 

 out the brick, and found the hole for about two inches filled with wax. 



The Leaf-celled Bee [Megachile centuncularis,La,tv.'\. 



This bee is smaller than the common bee, especially shorter ; it is 

 somewhat like it in colour, but rather lighter ; its hair is lighter- coloured, 

 and more especially so in the male. In the month of July they are 

 emerging from their cells ; and, I apprehend, are very soon fit for pro- 

 pagation, as I find them about the latter end of the same month build- 

 ing their cells. This is known, without seeing them, by the oval 

 notches taken out from the edges of the rose-leaf, strawberry-leaf, and 

 dogwood-leaf; and we may catch them at work the same month. 

 Whether they eat holes in wood, or take possession of holes already 

 formed by other insects, as for instance the beetle, I do not yet know. 

 I should suppose both ; for I have found them building their cells in 

 holes of a brick wall that were not made by them, and I have found 

 them carrying in leaves into holes in wood which appeared to have been 

 made by the bee ; for there was the rind of sawdust lying on the 

 ground underneath : likewise I have found in some of their (shall I call 

 them?) hives, that the first cell, which was formed at the bottom of the 

 canal, was only five or six inches from the surface. Now a canal of 

 this length is too short to have been formed by the maggot of a beetle 

 burrowing during the whole of its maggot-state. The hive of this bee 

 is commonly in old rotten wood, which is also rather in favour of 

 their making their own canals or hives ; for I believe no insect lives in 

 rotten wood. The canal in which they form their cells is from five to 

 twelve inches in length, and is considerably wider than the size of the 

 bee ; because it has to form a cell of leaves, or line it with several 

 layers of leaves, which are wrapped round itself. The first pieces of 

 leaves it takes in are oval ; and to see it flying with so large a piece of 

 leaf is curious, and afterwards dragging it into the canal. How it 

 models the leaf afterwards I do not know, but it is done extremely 



1 [" No doubt the male of Anthophora." — Fr. Smith.] 



