C 844 ] 
LX XIV. An Account of a Specimen of the 
Labour of a Kind of Bees , which lay up 
their Young in Cafes of Leaves , which they 
bury in rotten Wood: In a Letter to 
Daniel Wray, Efq\ F. R. S . from Sir 
Francis Eyles Styles, Bart . F. R. S . 
S I R, 
Batterfea, June 11, 1760. 
Read June i2,*y Send you by the bearer a fpecimen of 
1 700 * " ^ - - - — - 
1 
of the labour of a kind of bees, who 
lay up their young in cafes of leaves, which they bury 
in rotten wood. I make no doubt but they are the 
fame, which are defcribed in the Tranfadions of the 
Royal Society, by Sir Edmond King, Mr. Francis 
Willoughby, and Dr. Lifter. See Lowthorp’s abridg- 
ment, vol. ii. p. 772, &Jeq, 
Monf. Reaumur, in his Hiftory of Infeds, tom. vi. 
p. 39. defcribes a kind of bees, which he calls per- 
cebois (wood-borers). But thefe, he tells us, form 
no cafes for their young, but lay them in the holes 
they make in the wood, without other covering, ex- 
cept artificial floors, which they make of the fame 
wood, to divide the length of the holes into feparate 
lodgements, each of which contains a Angle bee. In 
p. 97. of the fame volume, he defcribes another kind 
of bees, which he calls coupefeuilles (leaf-cutters) ; 
and the defcription, which he gives of their work, 
feems to anfwer to the fpecimen I fend you. But he 
tells us, that all the fpecimens he had ever found, or 
been able to colled:, of their labours, were taken out 
of 
