MACEONOTA. 49 



very common in the districts in which the beetle has been found. 

 In the bee the body fur is black, except at the tail, aud that of the 

 legs briglit orange. This is exactly imitated by the beetle, but the 

 latter has also a few long light coloured hairs upon the back, which 

 produce the effect of the reflected light from the folded wings of 

 the bee. AVlien basking in flowers after the manner of its kind 

 there can be no doubt that it could only be distinguished from its 

 model by a very close scrutiny. 



A genus was formed by Westwood for this species, but the 

 discovery of other hairy forms has bridged the apparently wide 

 gap by which it was separated from its allies. Divergences 

 mimetically produced are always misleading in classification, and 

 the actual structural differences between these hairy Macronotce 

 are quite as great as any by which they are separated from the 

 more normal forms. 



14. Macronota westwoodi. 



Bombodes westwoodi, Thorns.,* Arch. Ent. i, 1857, p. 284, pi. 14, fig. 2. 



Black, with the extremities of the elytra, the pygidium, the hind 

 tibite and the middle and hind tarsi very dark chestnut-red — the 

 whole body and legs, except tlie middle of the metasternum and 

 abdomen, clothed with long ei'ect hairs, those on the anterior half 

 of the body and a postmedian transverse band upon the elytra 

 being black, those upon the sides of the metasternum aud abdomen, 

 the iiind legs and a median transverse band upon the elytra yellow, 

 and those at the extremities of the elytra and the pygidium tawny 

 red. There are long and thick tufts of black hair at the shoulders 

 and towards the extremity of each elytron, a whitish spot 

 (generally more or less triangular) beyond the middle of each 

 outer margin, and a short inconspicuous transverse line before the 

 middle of the suture. 



It is much more elongate than M. ursus, Westw., and the hairy 

 clothing is less uniformly long. The legs are less densely clothed. 

 The whole upper surface is finely rugose, but there is a well-marked 

 smooth longitudinal carina upon each elytron. The clypeus is long 

 aud feebly bilobed, the prothorax much broader than it is long, 

 with the sides strongly angulated a little before the middle, the 

 base broadly lobed and distinctly depressed at the middle, and the 

 ■eli/tra strongly sinuated behind the shoulders. The front tihia is 

 broad aud very strongly tridentate, and the middle tibia has a single 

 strong spine at tlie middle of the outer edge. 



I have seen only two female examples. 



Length 16-17 mm. ; breadth 8 5 mm. 



Sjkkim : Darjiling, Mungphu. 



Type in coll. ii. Oberthiir. 



This, like the preceding species, is a very striking mimetic form. 

 It is an exact imitation of the Bee, Bombus assamensis, Bingh., 

 which the late Col. Bingham informed me he found extremely 

 common in the localities recorded above for the beetle. 



B 



