[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
These are amongst the specially interesting of the bees in their habits.
They are dull-brown coloured creatures rather like a stout hive bee in form
(pl. C, 20). They all collect pollen on the underside of their body. They
burrow either in decayed wood or in the ground, but they make their cells
of pieces of leaves which they cut off from rose bushes or other plants;
these cells when completed are wonderful works of art. Probably some of my
readers may have noticed rose leaves with semicircular pieces cut out of
them, and often with almost circular ones; this is the work of the leaf
cutter (fig. 7).
[Illustration: PLATE C.
20. _Megachile maritima_, _female_. 21. _Coelioxys conoidea_, _male_. 22.
_Coelioxys conoidea_, _female_. 23. _Nest of Megachile willughbiella._
[_face p. 52._ ]
{53} She alights on a leaf, holds on to the edge of the piece she wants to
cut off with her legs, and then cuts it out by means of her jaws, or
mandibles; as soon as it is cut free she uses her wings and so prevents
herself from falling, and goes off with the cut off piece safely held under
her body by her legs. I have frequently seen bees flying home with their
leafy burden, and once or twice I have seen them cutting the pieces out.
They cut round the piece they select with great rapidity--the marvel is
that they can arrange so exactly as not to fall when the last attachment is
removed. The pieces they cut have to be of several shapes in order to build
up the cell they require; some are more or less lozenge shaped, some almost
circular; the cells they make are somewhat thimble-shaped. The
lozenge-shaped pieces are used to build up the sides and lower end of the
cell, and the circular pieces to close it in with at the top; it is all
cemented together with a gluey substance excreted by the bee. The burrows
of the leaf-cutters are made, as stated above, either in the ground or in
rotten wood. I have never had a subterranean nest to examine, but have had
several nests in rotten wood under my notice, one of which is now before me
(pl. C, 23). It is in a piece of very {54} soft willow, almost in a
touchwood condition. So that by carefully cutting away the wood I have been
able to expose the whole series of cells. Two distinct burrows run almost
parallel to each other; both of them are slightly curved and each has
contained six cells; these are about half an inch long, and they fit one
over another in the tube as closely as possible so as to look like two long
thick green worms. Each cell is composed of many pieces of leaf, and the
final plug which closes the cell is often made of several rounds of leaf
one over the other. The amount of labour taken by the mother bee to make
these cells must be enormous. The cells are provisioned like those of any
other solitary bee with pollen, etc., and the egg is laid upon it. Most of
the leaf-cutters have their attendant cuckoos, which are rather smaller
than themselves, of a deep black with white bands on the sides of the body.
The female has a very pointed tail, and the male's body ends in a series of
spine-like projections (pl. C, 21, 22).
* * * * *
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