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In the dead bough of a lilac-tree the dark-hued Xylocopa, the wood-boring bee, is busy tunnelling her gallery. In the shade of the rushes the Praying Mantis, rustling the floating robe of her long tender green wings, "gazes alertly, on the watch, her arms folded on her breast, her appearance that of one praying," and paralyses the great grey locust, nailed to its place by fear.
The Scapular Anthidium is loyal to the dry bramble, deprived of its pith and turned into a hollow tube by the industry of various mining Bees, among which figure, in the front rank, the Ceratinae, dwarf rivals of the Xylocopa, or Carpenter-bee, that mighty driller of rotten wood.
The maggot buries its head in the soft body of the young bee and feeds on its juices. Mr. Angus thus writes us regarding its habits, under date of July 19: "I asked an intelligent and observing carpenter yesterday, if he knew how long it took the Xylocopa to bore her tunnel. He said he thought she bored about one-quarter of an inch a day.
I think when this is the case, the Xylocopa prefers making a new cell, to cleaning out the dirt and rubbish of the other species. I frequently find these bees remaining for a long time on the wing close to the opening, and bobbing their heads against the side, as if fanning air into the opening. I have seen them thus employed for twenty minutes.
Xenophon, selection in mankind advocated by. Xenorhynchus, sexual difference in the colour of the eyes in. Xiphophorus Hellerii, peculiar anal fin of the male. Xylocopa, difference of the sexes in.
Indeed, the insect does not even trouble to make a side-opening, which would enable it to occupy the cavity contained within two nodes; it prefers the opening at the end cut by man's pruning-knife. If the next partition be too near to give a chamber of sufficient length, the Xylocopa destroys it, which is easy work, not to be compared with the labour of cutting an entrance through the side.
The Xylocopa, in order to pierce wood and to bore its galleries in an old rafter, employs "the same utensils which in others are transformed into picks and mattocks to attack clay and gravel, and it is only a predisposition of talent that holds each worker to his speciality."
In Anthophora retusa the male is of a rich fulvous-brown, whilst the female is quite black: so are the females of several species of Xylocopa, the males being bright yellow. On the other hand the females of some species, as of Andraena fulva, are much brighter coloured than the males.
The Xylocopa, which burrows in the trunks of trees and old rafters, forming little round corridors in which to lodge her offspring, "will utilize artificial galleries which she has not herself bored."
She first attacks the wood perpendicularly to the surface, then suddenly turns and directs downwards the passage, the diameter of which is about equal to the size of the insect's body. The Xylocopa thus forms a tube about thirty centimetres in length.
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