in the same way as the fossors do, and many of the fossors are found in flowers, apparently enjoying them just as much as a truly anthophilous species would, although no doubt often with the ulterior object of capturing some insect for their young! Still these names are known as representing these two sections all over the world, and therefore it is better to keep to them even if they are not as descriptive as one would like them to be.
The fossors, or "diggers", have all comparatively short and bifid tongues, and have, as a rule, little in the way of hairy covering, and what hairs they have are simple and only in very rare instances branched or feather-like. The hind legs of the females are not modified in any way so as to enable them to collect pollen, their legs are usually long and slender, and they are admirably adapted to their life habits of hunting spiders, insects, etc., for their young.
On the other hand, the Anthophila or "flower-lovers", are specially adapted for pollen collecting. Their tongues vary from a short form like that of some fossors to the long tongues of the humble bees. Their hairs are always plumose
or branched on some part of the body and the hind legs of the females in most species are provided on the tibia or shin with a special brush on which pollen may be collected. In some of the long-tongued bees, however, this brush occurs on the underside of the body instead of on the tibia. The pollen-collecting arrangements of the different genera of the Anthophila and the corresponding organs for cleaning off the pollen again are amongst the most interesting instances of modification and adaptation: some of the more striking of these will be mentioned later on. (See pp. [65] sqq.)
THE SOLITARY BEES
The life-history of an ordinary pair of solitary bees is, roughly, as follows: I will take for an example one of the spring species of Andrena. Many people know the little red bee, which for some apparently unaccountable reason suddenly appears in myriads on their lawn or gravel path, throwing up little mounds of finely powdered earth—in this respect being quite different from worm casts, which are formed of wet mould and the particles of which cling together—sometimes causing considerable alarm as to the possible effect on the lawn. These have hatched out from burrows made by their parents in the previous year, the mouths of which have been filled up with earth and therefore are quite invisible till the newly fledged bees gnaw their way out. They, in their turn, are now making fresh burrows for their own broods; possibly they infested some one else's lawn the year before or were only in comparatively small
numbers on the lawn under notice and so passed unrecognized. They may safely be left alone, as they never seem to breed many consecutive years in one such locality: probably the treatment of a lawn does not suit them, mowing and rolling upsetting their arrangements. We will now consider these arrangements. The female bee, so soon as she realizes that she is charged with the duty of providing for her future offspring, makes a burrow in the ground, and the earth thrown up from the tunnel forms the little heap which is so observable; this burrow varies in depth from 6 to 12 inches and has short lateral branches; each of these she shapes, more or less, into the form of a cell, provisions it with a small mass of pollen mixed with honey for the maintenance of the larva when hatched, and lays her egg; she then seals up that cell and proceeds to the next, and in this way fills the burrow up until pretty near the surface. The bee caterpillar when hatched is a white grub-like creature which, after devouring the food provided for it, becomes more or less torpid; it then makes its final change of skin, after how long a period is probably uncertain, and appears in the nymph stage.