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My acquaintances here are too numerous; I have not the leisure to renew my former relations with all of them. Here we are at last. This high, perpendicular rock, facing the south to a length of some hundreds of yards and riddled with holes like a monstrous sponge, is the time-honored dwelling place of the hairy-footed Anthophora and of her rent free tenant, the three-horned Osmia.
We know that the Three-horned Osmia prefers to haunt the habitations of the Bees who nidify in populous colonies, such as the Mason-bee of the Sheds and the Hairy-footed Anthophora, in whose nests I have noted similar facts. Thus the sex of the egg is optional.
The touch of the honey is as fatal to them as to the young Sitares. Searches made at various periods in the nests of the Hairy-footed Anthophora had taught me some years earlier that Meloe cicatricosus, like the Sitares, is a parasite of that Bee; indeed I had at different times discovered adult Meloes, dead and shrivelled, in the Bee's cells.
The Mason-bee of the Sheds, on the other hand, supplies free lodgings to two species of Osmiae, Osmia tricornis, LATR., and Osmia Latreillii, SPIN., both of whom are quite common. The Three-horned Osmia frequents by preference the habitations of the Bees that build their nests in populous colonies, such as the Chalicodoma of the Sheds and the Hairy-footed Anthophora.
We know that the Three-horned Osmia prefers to haunt the habitations of the Bees who nidify in populous colonies, such as the Mason-bee of the Sheds and the Hairy-footed Anthophora. Exercising the very greatest care, I broke up some great lumps of earth removed from the banks inhabited by the Anthophora and sent to me from Carpentras by my dear friend and pupil M. Devillario.
The spacious galleries of the Masked Anthophora suit the Florentine Anthidium, the foremost member of the genus so far as size is concerned. The Diadem Anthidium considers that she has done very well if she inherits the vestibule of the Hairy-footed Anthophora, or even the ordinary burrow of the Earth-worm.
And so, all through the winter, I collect Osmia-cocoons, picked up in the nests of the Mason-bee of the Sheds; I go to Carpentras to glean a more plentiful supply in the nests of the Hairy-footed Anthophora, that old acquaintance whose wonderful cities I used to undermine when I was studying the history of the Oil-beetles. "The Life of the Fly": chapters 2 and 4.
The first, Anthrax sinuata, FALLEN, lives in the cocoons of Osmia tricornis, who herself builds her nest in the old galleries of the hairy-footed Anthophora; the second, Anthrax trifasciata, MEIGEN, exploits the Chalicodoma of the Sheds. I will consult both. Once more, here am I, somewhat late in life, at Carpentras, whose rude Gallic name sets the fool smiling and the scholar thinking.
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