1017.] 1(51 



the countrv wlionee tlie others caine. It seems (h)uhtful whetlier any 

 British specimens of ericeiorum exist, excepting the original pair taken 

 by Smith. 



Tlie liermaphrodite o£ Anthophora pilipes taken at Barnes in 183G 

 is very well preserved, and, as Smith remarks, " the 5 character pre- 

 dominates," since, so far as can be told without dissection, the abdomen 

 is wholly 2 . There are also several interesting hermaphroditic examples 

 of Apis mellifica. 



The collection of Bomhiis includes some interesting specimens apart 

 from those of B. pomorum Panz., a species which apparently has never 

 been found here since it was recorded by Smith. Owing to his careless- 

 ness in this, as in other matters, the date of capture of the three males 

 has been recorded as 1837 and 1863 by himself. But the actual label 

 on the c? is clearly July 1857, so that in his one record he probably 

 looked at the label but misread it, and in the other trusted to memory. 

 The $ has no label. That the males were not caught in 1837 is certain, 

 as the pins used are of much later date. 



Smith took great pains in his younger days to compare individual 

 Bomhi with the actual types of Linnaeus and Kirb}^ and to label them 

 accordingly, and whatever one may think of the original description, it 

 is clear that the type of the Linnean B. muscorum was, when Smith 

 examined it, the species we used to know under that name, but later as 

 cKjrovum Fabr. I see no reason, therefore, for this later name on the 

 ground that the original description is ilnperfect or inconclusive. 

 Smith's B. venustus was essentially based on the pale form of 

 smifliianus, later known to us as muscorum L., but he also included 

 with this the species which Saunders called venustus and others 

 lie] fer anus. Of B. soroensis F. there is an extensive series, but only 

 one female. Both Smith and Saunders describe all sorts of varieties of 

 this species, quite apart from the red-tailed form, which, in his latest 

 work, the last-named author says has not yet been found in this covmtry. 

 Neither Smith's specimens, nor yet any other of the many British 

 examples that I have seen, justify the description of our authors. One 

 would rather say that in England B. soroensis is a fairly constant 

 species, or at least shows no very great variation. Of B. cullu- 

 inanus K. there is a short series of males and also two supposed 

 females, which appear to have been accepted by Saunders as belonging 

 to the males. I cannot myself see any structural character to separate 

 these from the common pratorum, but Smith considered " the abdomen 

 shorter and broader " and Saunders '* the face shorter and squarer " than 



