232 HYMENOPTERA. 



The specimens without the patch were rufipes Sm. (tertius D. 

 T.), but I think they are all varieties of a single species. I 

 have a specimen of true bicingulatus from Smith's collection. 



Halictus forresti Ckll. 



cf . — The flagellum varies to obscurely dull reddish beneath, 

 and the mesothorax, especially posteriorly, may be quite 

 shiny. Mr. Turner took it at Mackay, March, 1900. H. 

 sturti Ckll. was also taken at Mackay in the same month. 



Halictus blackburni sp. nov." 



9 . Length about 6 mm. ; black, the head and thorax with rather 

 scanty dull white hair; mesothorax dull, with a faint suggestion of 

 greenish ; abdomen shining, without hair-bands or patches, and the 

 margins of the segments not at all pallid. Mandibles ferruginous sub- 

 apically ; tongue short dagger-shaped ; face broad ; flagellum ob- 

 scurely brown beneath ; area of metathorax with fine longitudinal 

 rugae, connected more or less by cross-lines, and not reaching the hind 

 margins ; tubercles densely covered with grayish-white hair, but not 

 postscutellum ; tegulae dark reddish ; wings hyaline, nervures and 

 stigma dark rufo-fuscous, outer nervures of third s. m. and discoidal 

 much weakened ; second s. m. broad, little narrowed above ; first r. n. 

 meeting second t. c. ; legs black, with white hair, more or less yellow- 

 ish on inner side of tarsi ; small joints of tarsi becoming ferruginous ; 

 fourth and following segments of abdomen with some long fuscous 

 hair above ; venter with curled white hair, forming a scopa. The fol- 

 lowing characters are microscopic : abdomen impunctate, microscop- 

 ically transversely lineolate ; mesothorax minutely tessellate, with scat- 

 tered very shallow and inconspicuous hair-punctures (not visible with 

 a lens); tegulae lineolate; front sculptured like mesothorax, and not 

 at all grooved ; hind spur with four stout teeth, the last minute. 



c?. — Much more slender; all the tarsi clear ferruginous, and a ferru- 

 ginous spot at base and apex of tibias ; second s. m. narrower ; lower 

 margin of clypeus rather broadly light yellow ; antennae only moder- 

 ately long, dark. 



Hab. — Mackay, Queensland; females (including type) at 

 flowers of Xanthorrhcea, April and May, 1899, and at Eucalyp- 

 tus, March, 1900 {Turner 915); males at Xanthorrhoea, Arpil, 

 1899 and 1900 ( Turner 8a) . Not closely related to any other 

 species, but superficially like H. sturti. 



Halictus stirliugi sp. nov. 



9 . Length about 6j mm., very robust, rather suggesting a Nomia ; 

 black, the abdomen shining, hair of head and thorax pale ochreous, on 



