affecting the Peas and Deans. 415 
compressed, greatly dilated, and glossy in the hinder, with a strong 
tooth outside at the base, 3 following joints small, 5th clavate, termi- 
nated by a pair of strong claws, furcate internally. — Obs. In old speci- 
mens tlie yellow bands are often brighter, and the tip of the body is 
quite white. The male is distinguished by having 13-jointed antenna;, 
and no tooth at the base of the 1st joint of the hinder feet ; the face is 
shorter, and the nose clothed with a mixture of yellow and black hairs. 
It is considerably less than the female, but many of the working -bees 
or neuters are much smaller. 
4. B. lucorum of Linnaus, the Wood-bee. It is similar in form to 
the foregoing species, and the males are the same size. They are 
black ; the nose and crown of the head are clothed with bright yellow 
hairs ; there is a band of the same on the fore part of the thorax 
and the base of the abdomen, including the scutellum ; the apical seg- 
ments are clothed with pure white hairs, having a black band across the 
middle of the body ; the hairs on the under side are principally yellow ; 
the feet, excejjting the broad basal joint, are rust-coloured. 
Humble-bees form their nests in old loose walls, amongst 
broken bricks and stones shot down as rubbish, in banks, at the 
roots of trees, &c. During the first fine days of spring, or even 
earlier, the females, which often pass the winter in mossy banks, 
come forth to collect honey and pollen from the catkins of the 
willow ; later in the season the neuters become active, but the 
males are not abundant until the autumn. In the summer 
Humble-bees may be seen collecting moss for the purpose of 
covering their nests, which are sometimes lined with wax. The 
comb is irregular, and formed of brown oval cocoons made of a 
kind of silk daubed with wax, amounting sometimes to 60, being 
adapted in size to the three sexes. If, therefore, it be desirable 
to stop the mischief caused by these animals, the nests must be 
destroyed at the end of summer, and the females collected as they 
come out in the spring. Humble-bees, however, have many 
natural enemies amongst the feathered tribes, especially the 
Butcher-bird, Lanius colluris, which impales them on thorns; 
there is also a dipterous fly of great beauty, named Volucella 
inaiiis, which, hovering about woods from June to the end of 
August, deposits its eggs in the Humble-bees' nests, and the 
larvae live upon the brood of the bees. The most formidable 
foe, however, is the caterpillar of a moth called Ihjthia colonella* 
which feeds upon the honey, and when full fed, spins a web of a 
close woolly texture, so tough that I could not rend it in pieces. 
The moth creeps into the nest in June to deposit her eggs, and 
the . caterpillars live in families sometimes of 500, to the total 
destruction of the progeny of the poor Humble-bees. Probably 
* Hubner"s Samlung Europaischen Schmetterlinge Tineaj, pi. 4, f. 22 
male, f. 23 female. 
