MEGACHILE. 
273 
suitably come under that denomination. The species 
themselves of the genus are called leaf-cutters, from the 
habit they have of cutting pieces from the leaves of 
various shrubs and trees, for the purpose of lining their 
nests. The description of the operations of one species 
will apply precisely to that carried on by all, the occa¬ 
sional difference between them being the selection of the 
leaves of distinct plants ; and it will exhibit the patient 
industry and perseverance with which these little uphol¬ 
sterers carry on their labours. 
Thus M. centuncularis , the type of the genus, burrows 
in decaying wood or in brick walls, and sometimes also in 
the ground, and makes use of the cuttings of rose leaves, 
—not the petals,—and the leaves of the annual and peren¬ 
nial Mercury ( Mercurialis annua and M.perennis ). The 
M. ligniseca bores into sound Oak and the Mountain Ash, 
as well as into putrescent Elm, and uses Elm leaves to 
line its nests, sometimes called centunculi from their 
being as it were patched together. This is the largest 
of all our species, and is found very abundantly every¬ 
where around London frequenting the flowers of the 
Thistle. The M.argentata, Fab., or LeacheUa of Kirby, is 
perhaps the prettiest of all the species, and forms its 
tunnels in sandbanks. I do not know what leaves this 
species selects, which used to be extremely rare, indeed 
for a long time only known by the specimen in the British 
Museum, until that ardent entomologist the Rev. E. W. 
Hope, to whom the University of Oxford owes its superb 
entomological collection, brought it in abundance from 
Southend, where, during his brief annual stay at his 
residence there, he used to find it in the grove which 
runs under the cliff edging the terrace of the village; 
it is extremely local, as that and Weybridge, in Surrey, 
T 
