NO. 1487. NORTH AMERICAN DIGGER WASPS— FERN ALD. 317 



ginous; middle and hind tibia? grayish sericeous; inner contour of 

 hind tibise straight; spines of all the legs black. 



Male. — Bod}^ and head rather more densely covered with hair and 

 more closely punctured than in the female; clypeus usuall}^ with three 

 blunt teeth in front; macrochwta? of ocellar and vertex regions absent 

 or not usually to be distinguished from the other hairs; anterior face of 

 collar as a rule more vertical than in the female; last dorsal abdominal 

 plate evenlv rounded, densely punctured, quite hairy, and with a pale 

 hinder margin; second ventral abdominal plate quite smooth, with a 

 few scattered punctures and black hairs; third, fourth, and fifth plates 

 more abundantly punctured but chief!}" at the sides and anterior to the 

 middle; sixth plate quite evenl}", but not coarsely punctured, slightly 

 emarginate behind; seventh plate narrow, less emarginate than the 

 preceding; eighth (terminal) plate rounded, with numerous punctnres 

 and brown hairs; with little or no metallic luster. 



Length. — Females, 21-31 mm.; males, 19-24 mm. 



CHLORION (CHLORION) CYANEUM ^RARIUM Patton. 



Chlorion urarhnn Pattox, Can. Ent., XI, 1879, p. 133. 



Chlorion cieruleum var. scrarimn Patton, Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash., Ill, 1896, p. 46. 



Type. — One female, in the collection of the American Entomological 

 Society at Philadelphia. 



This subspecies is readily distinguished by its color, which is bronze 

 blue or purplish blue, and l)}- its somewhat more slender body and 

 generall}" smaller size. 



This beautiful species is widely distributed in North America, but 

 1 have no record of it from the West Indies. The typical form is 

 distinctly southern, belonging to the Lower Austral Zone, though it 

 is sometimes found in the southern portion of the Upper Austral, 

 mingling there with serarium which extends through this zone well 

 up toward the Transition Zone, though it occasionally occurs much 

 farther south, and specimens have been taken even in Florida and 

 Texas in which the blue showed a bronze tint. In Texas, New Mexico, 

 Colorado, and California a greenish shade often appears and ma}^ in 

 some cases entirely replace the blue. 



Kohl" finds two species among the specimens of this insect accessible 

 to him and names them nearcticua and occttltus. I am unable to sepa- 

 rate these as some specimens show some characters of the one and other 

 characters of the other. Apparently nearcticus applies to those forms 

 in which the punctures and rugosity are least developed, while occultus 

 is applied to those in which they are strongest; but with an excellent 

 series of intermediates before me I can not regard the differences as 

 marking more than extremes of individual variation. 



«Ann. natur. Hofmus. Wien, V, 1890, pp. 186-187. 

 Proc. N. M. vol. xxxi— 06 21 



