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This ingenious system of defence is not the only one known to the Anthidia. More distrustful still, the Manicate Anthidium leaves no space in the front part of the reed.
A few, lastly, had both cells inhabited now by two males and now by two females. The most frequent arrangement was the simultaneous presence of both sexes, with the female in front and the male behind. The Anthidia who make resin-dough and live in Snail-shells can therefore alternate the sexes regularly to meet the exigencies of the spiral dwelling-house. One more thing and I have done.
Two Anthidia of my district, A. septemdentatum, LATR., and A. bellicosum, LEP., adopt as the home of their offspring the empty shells of different snails: Helix aspersa, H. algira, H. nemoralis, H. caespitum. The first-named, the Common Snail, is the most often used, under the stone-heaps and in the crevices of old walls. Both Anthidia colonize only the second whorl of the spiral.
This is what we learn from the persistence of each species in its structural details, despite the great variety of the foliage employed. The evidence of the Leaf-cutters proves that a certain latitude is left to the insect in its choice of materials for the nest; and this is confirmed by the testimony of the Anthidia, the cotton-manufacturers.
I hesitate to say yes and I hesitate to say no, for a host of cocoons are coated with a similar lacquer though deprived of communication with the outside air. All said, without being able at present to account for its necessity, I admit that the apex of the Anthidia is a breathing-aperture.
In this way I obtained some magnificent series of Anthidia and Megachiles, running up to a dozen. There was a melancholy side to this success. All my series, with not one exception, were ravaged by parasites. Both kinds were swarming with a colony of pigmy parasites whose name I have not yet been able to discover.
In those aerial nests, swinging at the end of a twig, not a Dioxys, a Stelis, an Anthrax, a Leucopsis, those dread ravagers of the other two Masons; never any Osmiae, Megachiles or Anthidia, those lodgers in the old buildings. The absence of the latter is easily explained. The Chalicodoma's masonry does not last long on its frail support.
Can the shells of the Anthidia be air-proof, owing to some modification that escapes me? In any case, this impermeability cannot be attributed to the excremental mosaic, which the cocoons of the resin-working Anthidia do not possess, though endowed with an apex of the very best. Shall we find an answer to the question in the varnish with which the silken fabric is impregnated?
Fabricius did not commit himself with his expression Anthidium, which alludes to the love of flowers, but neither did he mention anything characteristic: as all Bees have the same passion in a very high degree, I see no reason to treat the Anthidia as more zealous looters than the others.
They consisted of stumps of the great reed of the south, open at one end, closed at the other by the natural knot and gathered into a sort of enormous pan-pipe, such as Polyphemus might have employed. The invitation was accepted: Osmiae, Anthidia and Megachiles came in fairly large numbers, especially the first, to benefit by the queer installation.
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