LOCAL DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS. 505 
with many Hymenoptera, which either devour timber or 
nidificate in it,—as the Siricide, Chelostoma, Trypoxyion, 
Sapyga, and several Diptera. In the decaying hedge- 
stakes and sticks, where the Spheria decorticans has 
turned off the bark, you may meet with Anthribus brevi- 
rostris ; with A. latirostris, and other beetles, in S. frazi- 
nea: and A. albinus, which I have more than once cap- 
tured as it was emerging from the fissure of a gate-post, 
probably feeds on some internal fungus. The grassy 
balks that separate open fields usually abound in umbel- 
liferous plants, which are attended by numerous Hymeno- 
ptera and Diptera, particularly by the various species of 
the splendid tribe of Chrystde: and the grassy banks of 
fences, where the aspect is sunny, are generally bored by 
a variety of insects of the former Order, to prepare a nest 
for their young. Andrenide and Nomadide particularly 
select this situation, the latter probably depositing their 
eggs in the burrows of the former*. By watching these 
places in the spring, you may perhaps have the good for- 
tune to meet with a Stylops. It is singular, that some 
insects choose, for their own residence or that of their 
young, the hardest and most trodden pathways. Thus, 
some ants will build their subterranean apartments un- 
der gravel walks; and so do many species of the genus 
Hralictus”, the habits and economy of which have been 
so ably detailed by M. Walckenaér“: - Cerceris also, and 
other Hymenoptera, will choose such places, however 
public, for the site of their nests or burrows. The ground 
2 These, as well as Melecta, are probably a kind of Cuckow-bee. 
Mon. Ap. Angl. i. 150. 
b Melitta. « *.b. Mon. Ap. Angi. i. 138—. 
© Mémoires sur le genre Halicte. 
