HYMENOPTERA-ACULEATA. 399 



labialis, and coitana, while a few make their little 

 tunnels apart. 



The Andrenas, like other Anthophila, have 

 many foes. The bees themselves are sometimes 

 preyed upon by rapacious Aculeates of the two 

 genera Vespa and Cerceris, which cany them off 

 as food for their young. Of other enemies, the 

 writer has occasionally detected the minute 

 orange as well as the black primary larvae of the 

 parasitic Coleoptera of the curious genus Meloe 

 upon bees of this genus, and the imagines of one 

 species (M. proscaraboeits) may often be seen 

 crawling about sandy banks near the burrows 

 of Andrenas in our district. The apterous 

 female of that remarkable aberrant Cole- 

 opteron Stylops melittce sometimes occurs in 

 our neighbourhood, protruding its head between 

 the segments of the abdomen of individuals of 

 certain species of the genus Andrena, and causing 

 curious malformation in the bee ; but the writer 

 has never met with the rare male, nor has Mr. 

 R. Newstead, who has kept special watch for it ; 

 the Rev. H. H. Higgins once secured one of these 

 exquisitely graceful white winged flies in his 

 garden at Rainhill. The nests of Andrena are 

 much attacked by bees of the inquiline genus 

 Nomada, whose larvae appropriate the honey and 

 pollen cakes stored up by their hosts, as noted 

 more particularly later ; and a small Dipteron of 

 the genus Bombilius also enters their burrows, 

 where its carnivorous grubs devour the larvae of 

 the bee. 

 A. albicans, Kirn. — One of our commonest spring species 

 all over the district. 



