ANTHOCOPA. 
293 
From the extreme rarity of the insect, I have been 
nnable to examine the cibarial apparatus, and thence to 
ascertain upon what substantial grounds the generic 
distinctions are based, which separate it from Osmia. 
Whether it was these mere habits of the insect which 
induced Le Pelletier de St. Fargeau to establish the 
genus I do not know, but he is always extremely slovenly, 
and therefore very unsatisfactory in his characteristics, 
which are never framed in a strictly explicit manner. 
In consequence of all these difficulties, I have merely 
been able under the generic character to introduce such 
as he has given, which I could not derive from the per¬ 
sonal external inspection of Mr. Desvignes’ female (my 
own selection of wdiose bees for the purposes of this work 
he has been so kind as to lend me, and whom I thus 
publicly present with my best thanks). I have there¬ 
fore compounded a character as well as I could from 
St. Fargeaffis descriptions, inserted in the tenth volume 
of the f Ency elope clie Methodique / and from his work on 
the Hym,enoptera, forming one of the f Suites a Buff on? 
The habits of these bees, as said above, are to excavate 
vertical cylinders in hard down-trodden pathways and 
roads, by the sides of fields where corn is grown, and 
wffiere consequently the common red poppy is abundant. 
From the petals of the flowers of this plant they cut 
out semicircular pieces, precisely as is done by Mega- 
chile with the more rigid leaves of shrubs and trees, 
and convey them home and line their nests with them, 
just as is practised by that genus with those leaves.— 
with this difference merely, that a sufficient portion ot 
the upper edge of the pieces of the petals used is left 
projecting, for the purpose of forming a covercle to the 
nidus, and which, when filled with provender and the 
