276 [December, 



distributed than at present imagined, and if collectors will secure all 

 the very brightly coloured (J examples they meet with, I suspect many 

 will prove to belong to the species we have hitherto regarded as a 

 rarity. The unsatisfactory part of it all is that the ? and $ at present 

 cannot be identified for certain unless a ^J from the same nest can be 

 secured. On the Continent the shorter, more even pubescence of 

 " cognaius " is regarded as a distinguishing character between it and 

 venustus (variabilis, Schm.), but in the specimens from this country I 

 cannot see any character of this sort to rely upon, although it is clearly 

 noticeable in my Continental examples, the pubescence of " coffnafus" 

 comparing with that of ''variabilis'' somewhat as that of Latreillellus 

 compares with that of hortorum, the difference being, however, less 

 marked. 



It would really seem that in many cases the form of the ^ arma- 

 ture is the only reliable character in Bombus, and there is probably 

 no genus that preaches so clearly against trusting to colour in the 

 determination of species. The variability of nearly all the species 

 (^. e., if we take the ^ armature as our determining guide) is extreme, 

 and many species which in this country seem pretty constant in colora- 

 tion, are found to vary extensively when the more southern forms are 

 considered. In Britain terrestris and its var. liicorum keep constant 

 in the style of banding, although the colour of the paler bands and of 

 the apex of the abdomen varies, but follow it to Corsica, and its ? and 

 $ appear in black and red livery, almost like that of lapidarius, and 

 with bright clear testaceous-red tibiae, the ^ being sometimes entirely 

 pale yellowish but with generally a slightly darker transverse band on 

 the thorax. Or take lapidarius ? , which in this country is black with a 

 bright red tail, and only very rarely has a narrow yellowish band on 

 the pronotum ; in Italy you will find it w.ith broad yellow bands across 

 the thorax anteriorly and posteriorly, and the base of the abdomen 

 bright yellow ; hortorum also in the south runs into a variety with an 

 entirely black abdomen {" ligustimis'"), and also into one with a red 

 apex to the body (" corsicus "), and around pratoruvi there is a group 

 of even now so-called species, pratorum, JoneUus, lapponiciis, alticola, 

 pyrenceus, in all of which the ^ armature is practically identical, which, 

 to my mind, are as clearly referable to one as the varieties quoted above. 



I believe that these races (as they may more properly perhaps be 

 called) keep distinct, so that one would not find a pratorum and Jo- 

 neUus, for instance, in the same nest, and so perhaps it is well to keep 

 them under distinguishing names, just as one keeps the various races 

 of Myrmica, but that they all really form one variable species I cannot 



