Named by St. Fargeau from ανθος, a flower, and κοπὴ, a cutting or incision, from its habit of cutting sections out of the petals of the common scarlet poppy with which to line the cells it forms within the cylinder it excavates, just as Megachile does with the leaves of various plants. It is noticed as British upon the faith of the specimens introduced by Leach into the cabinets of the British Museum and presumptively caught in the west or south-west of England, a region rich in rarities. Rennie in fact tells us that he has found it at Largs, in Scotland. One of Leach’s specimens I received in exchange from that establishment in 1842, and which is now in the possession of Mr. Desvignes, to whom my collections passed in the following year. This genus forms a sort of combination between the genera Megachile and Osmia, it having the upholstering habits of the former in the mode with which it lines its nest, and the general habit of the latter. At a first glance, before its habits were known or its structure examined, even an experienced entomologist might have placed it under Osmia, as an unrecognised species, for it very strongly resembles the Osmia leucomelana. This proves how very inconclusive habit is as an index to habits, the latter of these insects drilling into the pith of brambles, and the Anthocopa tunnelling cylinders into the hardest trodden roads or pathways and lining them with its crimson hangings.
From the extreme rarity of the insect, I have been unable 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 personal external inspection of Mr. Desvignes’ female (my own selection of whose 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 therefore compounded a character as well as I could from St. Fargeau’s descriptions, inserted in the tenth volume of the ‘Encyclopédie Méthodique,’ and from his work on the Hymenoptera, forming one of the ‘Suites à Buffon.’
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 where 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 Megachile 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 of 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 egg deposited, is refolded over it and covered in, and it is closed up with earth. They then proceed to make another excavation, which is treated in the same manner, for they deposit only one larva in a tube. If disturbed in their retreat, they will show themselves at its mouth, like Dasypoda, to see what is the matter.
I would urge our collecting entomologists, especially those who have the opportunity of hunting up the west of England, to use due diligence and strive to confirm the native existence of this bee and add specimens to the cabinets of their fellow-entomologists.
Genus 24. Osmia, Latreille.
([Plate XIV.] figs. 1 and 3 ♂♀.)
APIS ** c 2 δ, Kirby.
Gen. Char.: Head subglobose, concave, posteriorly fitting the prothorax and about as wide as the thorax; ocelli placed far forward on the vertex, which is wide and convex, in a curved line; antennæ filiform, sometimes subclavate, short, and geniculated, the scape robust, as long as the four following joints, the basal joint of the flagellum globose, its second joint clavate and as long as the terminal one, the remainder short, subequal, and gradually but slightly increasing in length; the face flattish; the clypeus a truncated triangle, convex; labrum longitudinally oblong, a little laterally distended at the articulation, from whence the sides are parallel; mandibles broad at the apex, obscurely tridentate, the internal teeth obtuse and short; cibarial apparatus long; the tongue three times the length of the labium, clothed with short hair and tapering from the base to the acute apex; paraglossæ very short, coadunate at the base and acuminate at the apex; labial palpi more than half the length of the tongue, the two first joints membranous and long, the basal one the broadest, seated on a petiole and not so long as the second, which tapers to an acute point, before the apex of which the remaining two short subclavate conterminous joints articulate; labium about one-third the length of the tongue, acutely produced in the centre of its inosculation; maxillæ as long as the tongue, subhastate and acuminate; maxillary palpi four-jointed, rather short, the joints subequal and subclavate, but the second is both the most robust and slightly the longest. Thorax oval or globose; prothorax inconspicuous; scutellum lunulate and convex; post-scutellum transverse and linear; the metathorax abruptly truncated; wings with two submarginal cells, and a third distinctly commenced, the second the longest, and receiving both the recurrent nervures, the first towards its centre and the second near its termination; legs moderate, setose, the plantæ of all with a dense brush beneath; claw-joint longer than the three preceding; claws simple. Abdomen short, cylindrical, convex, the terminal segment slightly pointed, the ventral segments densely pilose in parallel lines from the second.
The MALE differs in having the antennæ longer and always filiform, the ventral segments very concave, and the terminal dorsal segment variously mucronated, tuberculated, spinose or serrated, and the claws bifid.