PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 24, NO. 1, JAN., 1922 31 



NEW BEES FROM THE MADEIRA ISLANDS. (HYM.) 



Bv T. D. A. COCK.ERELL. 



Three of the species now described were collected by Wol- 

 laston, the greatest student of the entomology of the Atlantic 

 Islands, and placed in the British Museum as tar back as 1858. 

 The fourth was recently obtained by myself in Porto Santo, an 

 island from which no bees had been recorded All ot the species 

 are closely related to European forms. These are the only 

 endemic bees described from Madeira, excepting the beautiful 

 Anthophora maderae Sichel, which the British Museum has 

 from Canical, Madeira, April 21-25, 1904. This Anthophora, 

 though a very striking form, is so near to the European A. 

 quinqnefasciata Vill., that authors treat it as a mere variety. 

 The bee-fauna of the Madeira Islands is certainly very limited 

 as Wollaston and Eaton obtained only eleven species, and I 

 found only two more. This fact, and the close relationship 

 of the endemic species to continental ones, indicate clearly 

 that the Madeiran bees are not relics of extreme antiquity, 

 such as many of the snails, but are derived from ancestors 

 which reached the islands in comparatively recent times. 

 Probably they date back to the Pleistocene, but certainly not 

 to the Miocene. During Tertiary time, it would seem that the 

 islands possessed no bees, or if they existed, they have become 

 extinct. Had there been Tertiary bees, we should expect to 

 find a fauna with numerous allied species, as in the Hawaiian 

 Islands. 



Halictus wollastoni, n. sp. 



Female. Length about 5.5 mm.; a small species of the subgenus Chloralictus, 

 with the head and thorax bluish-green; abdomen very dark brown, with the 

 hind margins of the segments pallid; stigma dusky reddish, wings dusky. The 

 mesothorax may or may not show brassy tints. Very closely allied to H. 

 morio Fab., but the head and thorax are larger, the mesothorax dull and closely 

 punctured, the area of metathorax considerably longer. The type is a female. 



Male. Differs from morio by the much broader face, the clypeus not snout- 

 like, ami not at all pallid apically; mesothorax with a distinct median groove; 

 abdomen broader basally, not at all claviform. The flagellum is clear fer- 

 ruginous beneath. 



Madeira, several of each sex in British Museum, collected by 

 Wollaston. One of the males has a darker stigma, and lacks 

 the median groove of mesothorax; it may possibly be distinct. 

 Some specimens have clearer wings. 



Edward Saunders recorded this in 1903 as Halictus n. sp., 

 near morio. In the Museum, it has stood as H. unicolor Brulle, 

 but quite erroneously, as that Canarian insect is entirely black. 

 Brulle described four Canarian species with green thorax, but 

 this seems to agree with none of them. 



