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LT.-COL. S. M. COPEMAN ON A COLONY OF 



June 11th, 1918. • 



A. Ezra, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The Secretary read the following Report on the Additions 

 to the Society's Menagerie during the month of May 1918 : — 



The registered additions to the Society's Menagerie during 

 the month of May were 68 in number. Of these 14 were 

 acquired by presentation, 46 were purchased, and 8 were bred in 

 the Menagerie. 



The following may be specially mentioned : — 



2 Grecian Ibexes (Capra cegagrus), born in the Menagerie on 

 May 9th and 15th. 



1 Ruby- throated Warbler (Calliope calliope), from India, pre- 

 sented by W. H. St. Quintin, F.Z.S., on May 29th. 



1 Indian Chameleon (Chamceleon calcaratus), from Calabar, 

 presented by A. M. Kinloch on May 11th ; new to the Collection. 



Observations on a Colony of Burrowing Bees (Andrena fulva) 

 on Primrose Hill. 



Lt.-Col. S. Monckton Copeman, M.D., F.R.S., F.Z.S., exhibited 

 examples of the Burrowing Bee, Andrena fulva, and made the 

 following remarks : — 



The existence of a nourishing colony of a burrowing bee 

 (Andrena fulva) on the western slope of Primrose Hill, where, 

 during the present year, it has spread over a much more extended 

 area than previously occupied by it, appears worthy of record 

 for the reason that one locality only in the neighbourhood of 

 London — a small area on Hampstead Heath— is cited as a 

 habitat of this insect in the British Museum Catologue of 

 Hymenoptera. 



For the past six years this particular colony has been kept 

 under observation, during which period the number of nests has 

 not markedly varied from season to season until the present year. 

 The unexampled spread of the colony this year (1918), curiously 

 enough, was consequent on the manoeuvres of a Cadet Battalion 

 last autumn having converted a previously grassy slope into a 

 quagmire of mud, now represented by a smooth bare surface of 

 clayey loam. This patch of ground the bees have found so much 

 to their liking for nesting-purposes that (as indicated by a scale- 

 plan drawn by my son last year) they have, in large measure, 

 deserted their former haunts alongside a neighbouring path to 

 seize upon the new territory so- conveniently provided for them. 



Notwithstanding the hardness of the ground, the female bee 

 excavates in it a tunnel which in many instances, on probing 

 with a line flexible wire, I have found to extend to a depth of 



