218 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1890, 



line with the clypeus, and Smith's note that the wings are sometimes 

 yellow with a fuscous margin are conclusive. 



I found this species very common at Mergui in November, frequent- 

 ing in great numbers the flowers of the Anatto (Bixa orellana). I 

 discovered several nests, all excavated on the face of a bare hard 

 plain covered with short grass. The tunnels were about |rd of an 

 inch in diameter, and ran perpendicularly down for from 4 to 7 inches, 

 and then diagonally at angle of 50° or thereabouts for another 3 or 4 

 inches. In all the nests I found little rolls of the leaf of the anatto 

 plant stuffed full of pollen. In some of the rolls I found a tiny 

 opaque white egg, in others a transparent grub lying head down- 

 wards. What puzzled me, however, was that in a nest containing a 

 number of rolls (seven being the greatest number I found in any 

 one nest) it was always the top rolls, nearest the surface of the 

 ground, that contained the grub ; the eggs in them seemingly being 

 the first to hatch out though the last to be laid. 



20. Megachile badia, n. sp. 



Habitat: Burma (Pegu Yoma). 



Female : Length 9 lines ; expanse 15 lines. 



Description : $ Head broad as the thorax, black; mandibles 

 broad, sculptured with delicate longitudinal stria) ; clypeus broader 

 than long, densely punctured and having a T-shaped raised carina on 

 its disc ; face above up to the anterior ocellus clothed with black 

 pubescence ; rest of the head black, finely and closely punctured. 

 Thorax black, densely punctured, clothed with brownish black hair 

 on the sides and on the posterior face of the metathorax ; wings 

 fulvo-hyaline, with a broad fuscous margin ; legs black, the claws 

 and calcaria dark chestnut brown. Abdomen black, very closely and 

 finely punctured, and clothed rather sparingly with black pubescence ; 

 the 1st and 2nd segments have besides narrow submarginal bands of 

 deep fulvous red pubescence ; pollen brush black. 



This species closely resembles the last, but is abundantly different 

 in form, and conspicuous in having the two fulvous red bands on the 

 abdomen. 



I took the type specimen on the Pegu Yoma in December. I 

 have not as yet met with it in Tenasserim. 



