226 
BRITISH BEES. 
It is one of the most elegant of our native bees, both 
in form and the extreme congruity of its habiliment. 
This is unfortunately but a bridal raiment, for almost 
as soon as the arduous duties of maternity supervene 
these bright garments fads, and the workday suit im¬ 
mediately shows the wear and tear produced by the 
labours of life. The male flaunts about longer in the 
freshness of his attire, but he is usually the assiduous 
companion of his spouse, although he does not partici¬ 
pate in her toils. They are late summer insects, and 
form their burrows upon banks having a southern as¬ 
pect ; these they excavate deeper than does Andrena, 
and smooth and polish them internally. They gene¬ 
rally prefer spots intertangled with shrubs, and at the 
mouth of the cylinder they tunnel they heap up the 
extracted soil, to use a portion for closing it when their 
task is accomplished. In the course of this process, 
especially if a cloud pass over the sun, they will come 
forward to the aperture. They collect large quantities 
of pollen, for which the hair upon their posterior 
tibiae and plantae is excellently well adapted both by 
its length and the additional storing power it possesses 
in each individual hair being spirally twisted, although 
they are unprovided with the furniture of hair upon 
the femora and coxae found in the genus Andrence. 
Thus nature likes to vary its mode of accomplishing 
the same object. The details of their nursery processes 
are not known. For their protection their sting is very 
virulent, and also actively employed, as they have many 
enemies, especially amongst the fossorial Hymenoptera , 
whom they stoutly resist to the extent of their strength. 
We are not aware of any special parasites that infest 
them. They are semigregarious in their habits, for 
