218 
BRITISH BEES. 
although a very common insect, having a richly golden 
fulvous pubescence on the thorax, an intensely black 
and glabrous abdomen, the apex of which is fringed with 
golden hair. No males are now to be found at all. Yet 
it is only some species, and these the larger ones, which 
are subject to this peculiarity, for the smaller ones I 
have found burrowing during the summer months in 
vertical or sloping banks with a sunny aspect, whilst 
the males were hovering about both in the vicinity and 
close by, sometimes either playing or fighting on the 
wing with the very small Nomadae, which infest these 
species parasitically, whilst their females were sedulously 
pursuing their vocation. Gradually these joyous spring 
insects lose their gayness and their brilliancy, as do 
those which have followed in succession of development 
with the growing year, and they become senile and 
faded and are lost as they have progressively fulfilled 
their function. By this time the ragwort is in bloom, and 
the thistle displays its pinky blossoms; now the males 
are to be found numerously exhibiting themselves upon 
these flowers, and also another equally fresh brood to 
those of the spring and early summer, of females. My 
friend the late Mr. Pickering, who was in the early days 
of the present Entomological Society, when it held its 
meetings in Old Bond Street, its honorary curator, 
and who was then and always, even when less leisure 
was afforded him from professional duties, a most assi¬ 
duous and diligent observer of the habits of insects, 
propounded his theory, both in conversation and before 
the meetings of the Society, although he never drew up 
a paper upon the subject, that these females were then 
impregnated, upon which they retired to a hibernaculum, 
and there remained until the breath of a new spring 
