138 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 
Mr. Froggatt, to whom I am indebted for the identification, 
informs me that this bee is one of the most widely distributed 
species occurring in Victoria and New South Wales. 
On going up to Clarence Siding this year (1920), in Janu- 
ary, we found the bees again at work cutting the leaves of 
several plants: this time they favoured the young leaves of 
Chestnut, Wistaria, and Honeysuckle. Summing up the plants 
whose leaves were attacked, I found that no preference was 
given to any particular plant, but that the bees cut more 
often from those whose leaves were young and _ plentiful, 
though they had visited all those mentioned above. 
A bee was captured and examined with a lens. Its tongue 
was long and slender, and similar to that of the hive bee. Its 
body was black with patches of dense. white hairs. On the 
abdomen there were fringes of hairs at each of the prominent 
segments giving the bee a banded appearance. ‘The legs were 
densely clothed with hairs, which were coarse and stiff, like 
combs, on the tibia and tarsus, but more slender on the 
femur or thigh. It was interesting to compare the specializa- 
‘ tion of the legs with fhat of the hive bee. The first pair of 
legs bore the tibial comb with its flap, similar to that of the 
hive bee. All parts of the legs were densely clothed with 
hairs, but with no specialised gathering hairs. The second 
pair of legs bore the spine on the tibia to lever out the pollen 
from the pollen basket. The third pair of legs were interesting 
in that they had long gathering hairs much more slender than 
those on the lower part of the legs. They were but minutely 
branched, compared with the gathering hairs of the hive bee 
and the branches could only be seen on examination with the 
microscope. The tibia was specialised as a _ pollen basket 
much more hairy than that of the hive bee. There were pre- 
sent on the tibia two strong spines which are prominent, and 
probably aid in the carrying of the pieces of leaves. 
All the hairs could be of use in the gathering of pollen, but 
bees usually have very specialised branched gathering hairs on 
the thighs: these are most highly developed in the cultivated 
hive bees. 
The little black bee Trigona has the legs almost identical 
with those of the hive bee, but here again the legs are not 
clothed with the highly specialised gathering hairs. Howeyer, 
some of the hairs on the thigh have stiff branches at the 
apex of the main hair, longer than those of the leaf cutter, and 
much shorter and stiffer than those of the hive bee. 
