THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 213 



THE BEE GENUS THRINCHOSTOMA IN INDIA. 



BY F. W. L. SLADEN, 



Apiarist, Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa. 



(This paper was submitted to Prof. Cockerell in March, 1915, 

 who kindly added the vakiable notes given in brackets. — F.W.L.S.) 



Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell's description, on pages 35 and 36 of 

 Vol. XLV of the Canadian Entomologist, as a new species, of a 

 male and female of this curious genus that I recently sent him in 

 a box of bees, has led me to examine the remainder of my specimens. 



I find that the male and female described by Prof. Cockerell 

 belong to two different species, for, besides a male that agrees 

 fairly well with his description of T. sladeni, there is a male of 

 a different species that evidently is the true mate of a female I 

 possess that agrees fairly well with Prof. Cockerell's description of 

 the female of T. sladeni. 



My supposed male of T. sladeni agrees with Prof. Cockerell's 

 description of the male in having the head and thorax clothed with 

 white hairs, the margin of the clypeus cream-coloured, the legs 

 red-brown, with the various creamy-white markings described, 

 and in minor details, but it carries at the base of the 5th ventral 

 segment of the abdomen, on either side of the middle, a cluster of 

 three-hooked spines. The spines are arranged in a transvers3 line, 

 the inner spine is the longest and the outer one the shortest. This 

 remarkable and important structure is not mentioned in Prof. 

 Cockerell's description. 



The male of the other species, for which I propose the name 

 T. assamensis, has also a transverse row of erect hooked spines at 

 the base ofthe 5th ventral segment, but they number eight instead 

 of six and are nearly equidistant and of equal length. This male, 

 agrees with the female of mine that I refer to this species, and also 

 with the female described by Prof. Cockerell under T. sladeni, in 

 every important detail that is not sexual. In addition, it possesses in 

 common with my female another remarkable character not men- 

 tioned by Prof. Cockerell. The second transverse cubital nervure 

 does not reach to the radial nervure. [It does in my female, 

 however. — T. D. A. C] 



The figure oi Halictus ivroitghtoni Cameron shown on page 

 432 of Bingham's Hymenoptera of India, Vol. I (Fauna of British 



July, 191.5 , 



