INSECTA IIYMENOPTERA. 177 



scribed the uest of Epipone tatua (Pol. morio, F.) It is not thicker than 

 paper, but firm, constructed around the branch of a tree, and resembles in its 

 form, and in the annulation of its surface, the mail of the Armadillo (Tatu), 

 whence its name. 



Spinola has published a short memoir, ' Osservazioni sopra caratteri na- 

 turali di tre famiglie d'lnsetti Imeuotteri cioe le Vesparie, le Masari et le 

 Criside,' Geneva, 1843, which is intended principally to oppose Lepelletier's 

 extraordinary division, by which the social Wasps are widely separated from 

 the solitary. The author directs attention particularly to this circum- 

 stance, that in the Vespse, besides the longitudinally plicated wings, the power 

 of directing the abdomen upwards is provided for by the form of the meta- 

 thorax, together with which the Masaridse also combine the power of doubling 

 it in, by which the Chrysididse are distinguished, which, however, do not 

 possess the former power. 



APIABI.E. Several remarks may be made with respect to the Spanish Bees 

 described by Spiuola (1. c.) Andrena lamiginosa is my An. pruinosa (in 

 Waltl's Travels.) Sphecodes collaris, Spin., new ; (occasion is here taken to 

 describe two other new species, Sj>/i. rubnpes, from Bombay, and Sph cribosus, 

 from South Africa.) Dasypoda bcetica, Spin., is, according to the specimens 

 communicated by Rossi, his true D. discinda. Comptopeeum is the name 

 given by the author to a new genus which is intended to embrace Prosopis 

 frontalis, F. (Panurgus nasutus, Spin.), and to which a new Spanish species, 

 C. interruptum, is added ; which is, however, probably the female of my 

 Pamtrg. venustus. (Waltl's Travels.) Ammobates muticus, Spin., scarcely dif- 

 fers from A. rufivcntris, Latr. : to which the author objects that in Latreille's 

 species the tibise and tarsi are both red, whilst in his, the tarsi only 

 are so ; in the specimen in the Berlin Collection the tibiae are half red, 

 whence it follows that this difference is of no great importance. Osmia 

 beetica, Spin., corresponds in many particulars with my 0. rutila (Waltl's 

 Travels), and is probably only a variety. 0. rutila has a dark red abdo- 

 men, and the legs are entirely red. Megachile Ghilianii, Spin., is un- 

 known to me. Xylocopa sinuatifrons, Spin., is X. cantabrica, Lepell. ; 

 and X. hellenica, Spin. (1. c.), from Greece, is identical with X. olivieri, 

 Lepell. 



Fischer, v. W. (1. c.), has instituted : Melecta fasciculata, and \^-pundata, 

 both from the Upper Ural ; Bombus melwoides, from Irkutsk, differing from 

 B. sibiricus, F., only in the absence of the red baud on the thorax ; Apis 

 daurica, from the same part, and from South Russia, is scarcely more than 

 a local variety of A. mellifica. 



F. Smith (Trans. Ent. Soc. iii, p. 293) has observed Nomada Schaejferella 

 ( ? of N. connexa, Kirby), as a parasite of Eucera longicornis. The Bees 

 were on the wing together in June, and when he dug up the nests in March, 







