per part being damp, there was always a small round hole in the lid, about the size of a pin's head. This I imagined was left by the insect, that it might insert additional food previous to the final closing of the lid; they already had some food in them.

The food deposited in the cells for the larvæ, consists, as in most of the Apidæ, of honey, with but a small admixture of pollen. The honey must have been chiefly collected from Lotus corniculatus, that being almost the only plant on which I observed the bee to settle.

I have reared from the nests of this species of Osmia, several specimens of females, and two males. The insect has usually undergone its transformation by the latter end of September, and always before the winter commences. This I have found to be the case with very many species of bees, and believe it will prove a general rule. Probably the perfect insect is better able to bear the effects of the winter frosts than the pupa. A great portion of the Coleopterous insects, especially the ground species, have undergone their transformations before the winter. At what time Osmia atricapilla first makes its appearance, I am not able to say. I have found a male in the middle of March; it must be observed however that it was an unusually warm day, and I suspect he had mistaken the month. He was crawling slowly on the grass, could not fly, and apparently did not know what to do with himself. I have said the females were abundant in the beginning of June, at which time there were no males to be found; and taking matters as they stand, it seems immensely probable that, as usual, the males come out first, and that about the end of April or beginning of May.

The male Osmia atricapilla is considerably less than the female — length 5 lines; it has the fore part of the head covered with white hair, and the vertex with reddish brown, like other parts of the body, if we except the under surface of the thorax and its sides, where the hairs are greyish white.

In the female (which is usually about 6 lines in length), the head is entirely covered with black hairs, the thorax, and two basal segments of the abdomen with hair of a bright brownish-red colour, and on the apical portion of the abdomen, and the whole of the under side of the body, the hair is black.

I will hereafter send some observations on the mode in which the cell is constructed. I do not do so now, because I wish to say, in connexion with that subject, a word or two about the cells of some other insects, and these I cannot at this moment lay my hand upon. GEO. R. WAterhouse.

Notes on various Hymenopterous Insects, and Descriptions of two new British Bees. By FREDERICK SMITH, Esq.

CORRECTION of a previous error. I perceive that an unfortunate error has been printed in my communication of captures in Hampshire (Zool. 262 and 265), Osmia atricapilla should have been Osmia leucomelana. I am particularly sorry this should have occurred at p. 265, as some details of economy are given. Please to add a note in your next number, pointing out the error: I am sorry I did not observe it before, and cannot think how I could have made it.

Osmia bicolor and O. tunensis. I have received a communication from Mr. Walcott of Clifton, Bristol, who remarks,-"Osmia bicolor and O. tunensis breed numerously in the empty snail-shells on the slopes of our downs; as many as four specimens of O. tunensis have come from one shell of Helix nemoralis, two were males and two females." As you figured a bee in your last number (Zool. 336), this, I thought, might be worth recording. Mr. Curtis tells me that he has captured Osmia bicolor in snail-shells. Should you not get sight of the bee figured in the last number, pray write for a more detailed description, particularly whether the bee is furnished with the pollenbrush on the underside of its abdomen, and what is the colour of the hairs. The figure looks like a male in the form of its abdomen, and the six segments defined admit of an additional segment being hid by the usual convexity of the abdomen of the genus Osmia.

Economic habits of Ants. I am much pleased to find in your November number (Zool. 335), some notes on Hymenopterous insects, and beg to make a few observations on them, which may perhaps tend to throw some light upon the enquiries of your correspondents. Mr. Wakefield's account of the ants collecting the seeds of the violet, might incline some to think modern naturalists incorrect in stating that they lay up no store for the winter. Gould, a century ago, observed, "In warmer regions the weather is more favourable, and seasons less severe; therefore ants may not undergo that chill which they do in England, nor consequently pass the winter in a state of numb ness." "And it will appear from a repeated series of observations and experiments, that our ants do not lay up corn or other food against winter, and have no magazines peculiar to this purpose; but that, in reality, their unwearied diligence in collecting provisions is chiefly carried on for the noble design of maintaining posterity." Huber

held the same opinion, founded on observation. I have repeatedly examined the nests of Formica fusca, flava and rufa, in winter, and have always found the ants in a torpid state; and I believe that if ants require nourishment in early spring, previously to their leaving their subterranean abodes, they derive it from those species of insects found in their nests, as various species of Aphis, Claviger, Atemeles, &c. In the autumn of 1840 I was observing the various employments of a colony of Formica rufa, and was struck on observing numbers of neuters arriving, each carrying a similar substance in its mandibles. I caught several individuals, and found it was the seed of some species of plant. About four yards off was a sloping sand-bank, and I observed a continuous line of ants between this and their nest, and somewhere in the direction of the bank they found the seeds. I watched them carefully, and soon detected an ant scampering down the bank after a falling seed. They were the seeds of the common broom, and just at this season the pods were discharging them. I was curious to know for what purpose the ants collected these seeds, and found that they invariably deposited them outside their nest. All the ants did not bring seeds; some brought small pebbles, or other substances; and I was satisfied that the seeds were merely for the purpose of constructing their nest; probably the seeds, stones, &c., were intended to give greater solidity to the roof. I presume the species of ant observed collecting the violet-seeds was the common garden ant (Formica fusca); and I should be inclined to believe that the seeds were intended to be used in the construction of their nest, for I have repeatedly observed that species in a garden at Brompton, where they had chosen the interstices of a brick wall, carrying all manner of small substances, doubtless for the purpose of filling up all chinks and crevices, and making all comfortable within.

While on the interesting subject of ants, I will record the result of some experiments which I have made; and I will premise, that as what I am about to relate is in direct opposition to the opinions of Gould, of Huber, and I believe all modern investigators of the habits of ants, if the same care and observation are exercised by any one anxious to prove my statement, I doubt not he will become a convert to my opinion. Huber says, that previous to ants changing to the pupa state, they "are enclosed in a tissue spun by themselves before their metamorphosis; but they cannot, like other insects, liberate themselves from this covering, by effecting an opening in it with their teeth." This opinion was of course formed in consequence of Huber's having observed the neuters assisting the ants to escape from the

pupa-cases; but it struck me as so contrary to what obtains amongst numerous species of insects possessing apparently less power of extricating themselves that I determined upon trying some experiments. I collected pupa on several occasions, but they invariably perished; time after time I was disappointed. Last summer, having previously well considered my plans, I collected a number of cocoons from the nest of Formica rufa, and placed, first, a quantity of the materials of which the nest was composed in a box; then laying the cocoons carefully upon this, I covered them with more of the materials of the nest. At this time a few females and males were to be found developed in the nest. I placed the box in a warm but shaded situation, covering it with gauze; the following day I found two females had made their escape, but were very inactive when I found them, and soon died, probably for want of nourishment. I was obliged to leave home, and neglected to give orders for the removal of the box, and the afternoon's sun reaching it, all the rest of the ants perished. The experiment, however, has satisfied me that ants can extricate themselves, although probably they are generally assisted by the neuters. I intend following up the same course next season, and shall procure a number of neuters, to whose care I shall give the individuals which extricate themselves, should I again succeed in my experiment.

There is another extraordinary circumstance connected with the economy of ants, which has perplexed me not a little, namely, that I sometimes find enclosed and naked pupæ in the same nest, of some of the species of the genus Formica. De Geer, as well as Latreille, observed this fact; I do not remember that Huber did. I have found them in the nests of Formica fuliginosa, flava and fusca; in September last I found a great number of the pupa of F. fusca under bark, all naked, none were enclosed. I observed one female and but few neuters. The pupa were lodged in shallow grooves, excavated in the trunk of the tree: I brought home a number, and took some care in my endeavours to rear them: only two individuals arrived at maturity. I am inclined to believe that those larvæ which do not spin have not received sufficient nourishment; and that like other insects not well fed, they never arrive at the full perfection of the species. And it will be remembered that all the pupa of the genus Formica which have been observed naked, have been invariably neuters, or the least perfect sex, otherwise imperfect females.

Humble-bees without wings. I once observed, like your correspondent, Mr. Holme (Zool. 336), three or four humble-bees, late in the

autumn, in the same dismantled condition as those which he describes; on one of them a large Goërius olens was making a meal, but whether he took advantage of the bee's inability to fly, or rendered it incapable, I am at a loss to determine.

Descriptions of new Bees. The season for collecting having terminated for the present year, at least so far as regards the Hymenoptera, one has a little breathing-time, and can quietly review the results of another campaign. The past season is considered by collectors generally to have been an unproductive one; I can bear witness to the scarcity of insects generally. What became of the wasps - the true Vespida? I observed the usual number of females in the spring, but summer and autumn were enlivened by few of these industrious marauders. Anglers sought their favourite baits in vain, and I could could scarcely find a specimen, even in situations where wasps usually abouud. I found but one solitary male and half a dozen females. Notwithstanding the numerical deficiency of species, I consider the last season as one of the most fortunate I have experienced during ten years' collecting. I have captured several rare becs, as well as beetles; of the former, two new specics a beautiful species of Andræna and its parasite, a new Nomada, I will give descriptions of both, and would premise that I have searched amongst foreign collections, and hunted over foreign authors, and believe both to be undescribed. I have no wish to raise varictics into distinct species, or to re-describe them, but shall endeavour to point out shortly what species I consider as constituting varieties amongst the bees, as well as describing new species, should not some more able entomologist undertake the task. The genus Bombus I would reduce from thirtyseven species distinctly described in Kirby, to about eighteen: the genus Nomada from thirty-one species to about twenty, five of which are not described in Kirby's Monograph. Far be it from me even to insinuate that the illustrious author of that work unnecessarily increased the number of spccies; but the united experience of naturalists during the forty years which have elapsed since the publication of the 'Monographia Apum,' have enabled us to give to many females their legitimate partners, and also to discover that these partners, in many instances. are clothed in different colours.

I shall first describe the Andræna. It is quite distinct from all the species described by Kirby, and would follow A. Shawella in Kirby's arrangement. I have twice met with this bee; it congregates in colonies, and appears to be a very local species. On both occasions I