302 
BRITISH BEES. 
must be for some use in its economy, is perhaps the most 
common of all. I have found it in abundance upon old 
walls with a sunny aspect at Erith, and throughout the 
pleasant Crays of Kent. It is indifferent as to the choice 
of its domicile, selecting either walls, where I have chiefly 
found them, sandbanks, or the decaying stumps of pol¬ 
lard-willows. Its processes are similar to those of some 
of the earlier described, but its larva is longer in full 
feeding, which, when it has consumed all its provender 
spins a tough cocoon of brown silk, wherein it under¬ 
goes its changes; some, depending much upon locality, 
pass into pupae in the autumn, others hibernate as larvae 
which are subject to destruction from the attacks of the 
Chalcideous insect, Monodontomerus dentipes, previously 
noticed under Anthophora. Some of the Chrysididce 
also infest several of the species of this genus, and I have 
no doubt that Stelis aterrima is parasitical upon one of 
them, although it has not been recorded. The various 
species frequent many flowers, especially those abundant 
in the locality they inhabit, but the 0. pilicornis chiefly 
affects the common Bugle (Ajuga replans), and they 
much frequent composite flowers, especially the species 
of the genus Hieracium . 
Section 2. Cenobites {dwellers in community). 
Subsection 1 . Spurred. 
f Parasitical. 
Genus 25. Apathus, Newman. 
* (Plate XY. figs. 1 and 2.) 
Apis ** e 2 partly, Kirby.— Psithyrus, St. Eargeau. 
Gen. Char.: Body subliirsute. PIead subglobose; 
