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lasted till late in spring, the first fine warm day we had occurring 
on the 29th of April ; another cause may have been the unprece- 
dented drought of the summer of 1874, which materially interfered 
with the growth and flowering of many plants, thereby causing a 
great falling off in the quantity of pollen and honey, both of which 
aro essential for food for the larvae of the bees : still another fruit- 
full cause of their scarceness was, no doubt, to be found in the 
provalence of North and East winds, and sometimes the two 
combined; cold winds or dull weather are very prejudicial to these 
insects, they will not stir from their burrows while either prevail, 
should a cloud even pass between them and the sun, they will 
remain quiet on whatever flower they may happen to be, till it is 
passed, and if of long duration, they seem to fall into a deep sleep, 
or to bo almost entirely numb. 
In consequence of the cold Spring, all vegetation was backward, 
but when it did burst into bloom, and sunshine came, the early bees 
which had been retarded by the cold, swarmed in some species : 
amongst them was the hitherto unknown female of Andrcna 
bimaculata, a beautiful insect belonging to the division with red 
or partial red abdomens, the male was named by Ivirby who took 
it twice at Barham. Mr. Smith says in his book there are only 
two specimens known, and these are in the collection of the British 
Museum ; I was fortunate enough to take a few males on Mouse- 
hold three years ago, this year they literally swarmed, not only on 
Mousehold, but all round Norwich. This species seems to be free 
from the attacks of the parasitic Stylops, I suppose I handled over 
a hundred, but not one of them had a Stylops, although they were 
in abundance in Andrcna atriceps and convexiuscula, both of 
which insects were found in the same place, at the same time. 
Another Andrcna was found in tolerable plenty at the sallows, 
the male ami female of this bee greatly resembles the same sexes of 
Andrcna dorsata, an insect not uncommon at the flower of the 
Bramble during July and August; no bee like this latter, has yet 
been recorded, that 1 know of, as having been captured in the early 
Spring. Mr. F. Smith has identified this as A. combinata of 
Kirby, at one time thought to be a variety of the former insect, 
