Sladen was inclined to reject pomornin from the British list, since 

 it had not been found for so many years, but I think it should be 

 retained. The year 1857, in which tlic males were caught, was one, and 

 perhaps tJie best, of a succession of seasons extraordinarily favourable for 

 bees, but 1859 and the following years were most unfavourable, especially 

 for Bombi, as Smith has recorded. Nevertheless, j^omorum survived 

 these abnormally bad seasons, since the female was captured by Smith's 

 son in 18G4. Until Sladen himself cai)tured a single male, J5. ciillu- 

 111(1 iius K. was almost in the same case as poniorion as regards captures 

 in England. Seeing that the former had been taken in such distant 

 localities as Brighton, Bristol, and Suffolk, though no one ever obtained 

 either female or worker, and was lost until Sladen captured a single male 

 in Kent, while pomorum is likely to be a more local species, and might, 

 in its British form, be passed over, the S as Psithyrus, the $ as one 

 of the commoner Bombus, I see no reason to despair of its re-discovery. 



Alfken records liomorum in N. W. Germany as being found in the 

 neighbomhood of sand dunes and marshes, and distinguished by its wild 

 flight. The females and workers are particularly attached to the red 

 clover, the males visiting Knautia. The nest was found in the loose sand. 

 No doubt the neighbourhood of Deal was a most likely s])ot for the 

 occurrence of the species, and it should be sought in similar localities 

 elsewhere. One can easily imagine tliat Smith, who was keenly collecting 

 Andrena liaitorjiana on Knautia in 1857, may have found pomorum on 

 the same tlower. In the Bignell collection at Plymouth Museum, under 

 the name B. Uvpponicus are two examples without locality labels — the 

 one correctly named, the other a 5 of the mountain race of pomorum 

 called elegans, which considerably resembles B. distinguendus in 

 appearance. B. lapponicus is, as Bignell recorded, abundant on Dart- 

 moor, and no doubt his specimen was taken there, so that it is possible 

 that the other species might have also occurred with it. Bignell's^ 

 British collection, however, contained a few foreign specimens (e.g. 

 Fliilanthus triangulum and Megalodontcs klugii), and though all 

 these have, so far as I know, labels indicating their foreign origin, the 

 absence of such a label would not at present justify us in considering his 

 Bombus elegans as British. 



Newton Abbnt. 



Februunj 1th, 1G21. 



