270 [August, 



new wonders in the fields and gardens round, and added quite a 

 number of bees, both parasitic and otherwise, to the Palsearctic list. 

 These have been described by Friese in recent numbers of the 

 " Entomologische Nachrichten," and I will only mention one extra- 

 ordinary capture of my own — a unique specimen — an Eriades 

 (fasciatus, Friese) with yellow-banded abdomen, all the other 

 numerous species of that genus being unicolorous, black or fuscous 

 throughout. 



Like M. Pic I was struck by the similarity between the insects of 

 Jericho and those of Egypt. Among the conspicuous species common 

 in both districts are Xylocopa cestuans, Gribodo, and Vespa orientalis, 

 F., var. ceqyptiaca, Andre. Xylocopa hottentotta, Smith, is also a Jericho 

 species, and I suppose from its name that, too, must belong to the 

 African fauna, though I never found it in Egypt. The Sphegidee were 

 only just beginning to appear when w^e left Jericho, so I cannot say 

 how far the correspondence extends also to these. 



April 19th. We returned to Jerusalem, and thence nest day to 

 Jaffa. Our steamer was to leave for Beirut on the 20th, and in the 

 interval I searched some promising looking sandhills on the coast. 

 Here were multitudes of locusts, but little else. However, what 

 IJymenoptera I did find were "fit though few." Chrysis osiris, Buyss , 

 was visiting snail-shells tenanted by a new Osmia {Uy ulicornis, friese) , 

 and I also took a $ variety of the handsome and little-known parasitic 

 bee, Paradioxys pannonica, Moraw. 



April 21st. We landed at the important and beautiful city of 

 Beirut or Beyrouth (I could never make out the proper spelling, and 

 should use, if it were not too pedantic, its time-honoured name of 

 Berytus). Here, as at Jaffa, we found at first a most plentiful scarcity 

 of Ilymenoptera. The famous pinewoods above the town produced 

 nothing whatever. Still, rarities and even novelties began to appear 

 before we left. In a lane near the Damascus Railway Station I 

 noticed both sexes of a tiny bee visiting a blue labiate. Its choice of 

 a food-plant told me it could hardly be a Halictus, but probably a 

 Dufourea. So it proved to be {D. cceruleocephala, Moraw., of which 

 the ($ only had been described). Along the coast southwards extended 

 first clover fields and then sandhills. The former produced a new 

 variety {syriaca, Friese) of Meliturga prcestans, Gir., a species known 

 only from the neighbourhood of Vienna. On the sandhills grew 

 scattered plants of EcJiium, and these were visited by an extremely 

 pretty and agile Podalirius, of which with some difliculty I secured 

 both sexes. It seems to be near gemellus, Moraw., but is perhaps more 

 probably a new species. 



