CERATINA. 
247 
liorn between its antennae, Keparlvr], a horn . Some 
foreign entomologists, especially Latreille and Le Pelle¬ 
tier de St. Fargeau, have considered it to be parasitical, 
but that it is not so we have the authority of the Mar¬ 
quis Spinola, of Genoa, confirmed by the testimony of 
Mr. Thwaites, a very accurate observer, in the vicinity of 
Bristol, where the insect is not at all uncommon, al¬ 
though extremely rare in most other parts, and conse¬ 
quently usually a desideratum to cabinets, from its great 
beauty both of form and colour, notwithstanding that it 
is so very small in size. It has also been found in other 
localities, as at Birchwood, where the late Mr. Bambridge 
used to take it, and as near London as Charlton, at 
both which places I have no doubt it might frequently 
be found were it carefully looked for, but the practised 
entomological eye is often wanting to detect an insect 
unless it be conspicuously present. Its usual nidus is a 
bramble or briar stick, from which it excavates the pith, 
and this it has been frequently observed doing, and both 
sexes have been repeatedly bred from such sticks. We 
have no notice of any peculiarity in its mode of form¬ 
ing its cells, which may resemble that of such wood¬ 
boring genera as Chelostoma and Heriades , although its 
structure would intimate a closer affinity to the habits of 
the exotic genus Xylocopa; nor is there extant any ac¬ 
count of the process or time occupied in the development 
of its young. Spinola’s notion, from not seeing the 
sufficiency of the hair upon the posterior tibim for the 
purpose, assumed that the pollen was conveyed home 
on the forehead and between the antennre, he having 
caught an insect with some pollen accidentally incrusted 
there in the insect’s honev-seeking excursion. The 
hair upon these legs is very sparse, it is true, but then it 
