THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 125 



is known from its close ally shnilis Sm. This is a short-haired species in which 

 white felt bands on the abdominal segments are well developed with a corres- 

 ponding bare area on the disc of the segment. 



Osmia fulviventris L. 



Specimens of both sexes of Osmia purpurea Cr. from Ottawa and Toronto 

 agree in every respect, including size, with those of 0. fulviventris L. from Dover. 

 This is, therefore, a parallel case to that of Andrena ivilkella, and it is perhaps 

 worthy of note that the Osmia appears in late spring after most of the other 

 species of its genus have appeared as in the case of A . ivilkeUa. 



Megachile ligniseca L. 



Comparison of both sexes of Megachile inermis Prov. (M. decipiens Lovell 

 and Cockerell) taken at Ottawa, shows this species to be closely related to 

 M. ligniseca L. of Europe. Prominent characters possessed in common by 

 specimens from Dover and from different parts of Canada are the very short, 

 decumbent black hair on the disc of the sixth segment of the abdomen and the 

 large head in the female. But the white felt bands on the margins of the seg- 

 ments of the abdomen, well marked in Canadian specimens are rudimentary 

 in the British specimens. Canadian specimens also differ in having the pollen 

 collecting-brush cream coloured — not reddish, and the body hairs grey and 

 black — not browm, and the coat distinctly shorter. Ottawa specimens are also 

 smaller, average length of Ottawa females 14.33 mm.; Dover females 16.00 mm.; 

 Ottawa males 12.61 mm.; Dover males 13.88 mm. Specimens have been bred 

 in this country from a rotting piece of an apple tree found by Prof. Arthur 

 Wiiley at McGill College. In England it burrows in wood that is more or less 

 decayed. Most of the other Megachile burrow in the ground. 



The same differences, — shorter coat, which is whiter (less brown) with 

 stronger white felt bands, and paler (less red) pollen brush, separate M. vidua 

 Sm., a species common all over Canada from M. wilhighhiella Kirb\', a species 

 common in England and Northern Europe. 



Anthophora furcata Pz. 



This British bee is represented in the American fauna by a bee known by 

 the name of Clisodon terminalis Cr., which occurs in Canada from coast to 

 coast and at least as far north as Cochrane, Ont. and Edmonton, Alta. Friese 

 gives the range of A. furcata in Eurasia from Norway to Mongolia and south to 

 Caucasia. Ontario specimens differ from British in both sexes in having a 

 shorter coat — much shorter and scantier on the abdomen of the female and 

 generally less brown but greyer and paler, and the hairs on the abdomen run 

 into dense pale bands on the margins of the segments, taking, in the female 

 the extreme form of narrow bands of white felt, interrupted in the middle. No 

 tendency to white felt bands is noticeable in the specimens from Dover. Saund- 

 ers even gives this as a character for the species. The white felt bands are also 

 absent in four females from the Pacific Coast, (Agassiz, B. C, Shawnigan Lake, 

 V. I., and Victoria, V. I.) but they may have been rubbed off. 



Specimens from Ottawa are distinctly smaller than specimens from Dover, 

 but the females from the Pacific Coast are even larger than British females as 

 shown in the following table, and they probabh' represent a distinct species or at 

 least a geographical variety to which the name neofnrcata is here given. 



