212 



[September, 



accordiug to Smith, examples of ochrostoma. As to N.flava K., it was 

 described on male examples ouly, and there is nothing in the description 

 to show whether it is based .on bifida, mficornis, or the form we cdiWflava, 

 but including his three described varieties, it was clearly a mixture of 

 forms. I have been informed that the form considered to be N. flava of 

 Panzer, on the Continent, is the same as that, which I have identified 

 as such, in my description below. Panzer having the priority, it is 

 not of much importance what ISlvhys flava may have been. 



As to the species of Andrena on which the various species or forms 

 of the ruficornis group are parasitic, the information is far from satis- 

 factory. N. sl<jnata, which Smith, in his 2nd Edition says "was very 

 abundant on Hampstead Heath some years ago," is stated definitely 

 to be the parasite of A. fulva, though it by no means always occurs 

 wdiere that Andrena is found, being more local than its host. Shuckard 

 corroborates Smith, as also does Saunders. The only locality where I 

 have taken signata was in my father's garden at Eaglan, Monmouth- 

 shire, where A. fulva abounded, a locality probably very distant from 

 those where Smith, Shuckard, and Saunders collected it. 



N. lateralis Sm.,? Panz. is given both by Shuckard and Smith 

 (2nd Ed.) as the peculiar parasite of A^idrena hucephala, and is said 

 by the latter to have been " formerly very abundant near Highgate 

 Archway," where it was found at 'a colony of A. hucephala. My 

 personal knowledge of this parasite is very slight, as I have only 

 taken a single ^, in April, 1914, near Newton Abbot. Parfitt of 

 Exeter, in a life-time's collecting in that neighbourhood, I believe only 

 once found A. hucephala there, and then in a locality very similar to 

 that in which I found this Nomada at Newton. Consequently I feel 

 fairly certain that A. hucephala. is to be discovered at the latter place. 

 Shuckard's figure of the ? is certainly not lateralis in my opinion. 



JV. xanthosticta K. (lateralis E. S.nec Sm.) is exclusively the para- 

 site of Andrena praecox. I had abundant opportunities of studying 

 these two species, host and parasite, in Norfolk and Suffolk, and in 

 gardens in Cambridge, in 1888 and 1889. I supplied Mr. Saunders 

 with specimens of the Nomada at that time, and pointed out to him 

 that his association of it with A. hucephala, as given in his book, was 

 certainly an error. This error may have arisen because Smith's record 

 of the host of " lateralis " was accepted, the fact that this author's 

 lateralis was quite distinct from his own lateralis having been over- 

 looked by Saunders, in this connection ; and also his mind was 

 influenced by the fact that Mr. T. R. Billups had taken JV. xanthosticta 



