MELITTA. (*. a.) 33 



nigricantibus. Pedes nigri, albido-pilosi^ fe- 

 moribus posticis hirtis. 



Abdomen fusco-nigrum, ovatum, acutum, su- 

 pra valde convexum /. gibbum ; segmento 

 primo punctulatissimo glabro, secundo basi et 

 apice, reliquis apice, late tomentoso-niveis. 



Maris jintemice thoracis longitudine articulis 

 arcuatis. 



The Melitta here described, is the genuine jlpis 

 succincta of Linneus, as I find upon comparing it 

 with the authentic specimen preserved in the Lin- 

 nean cabinet : the rostrum, however, or proboscis, 

 scarcely merits the epithet of suhulatum which he 

 has given to it. In the same cabinet there is 

 another insect of this family, labelled by that great 

 naturalist Apis marginata; this is much smaller 

 than M. succincta, but in other respects it scarcely 

 differs from it. 



I have excluded the synonym of Geoffroy, re- 

 ferred to by Linneus for this insect, since it ap- 

 pears to me to belong rather to Apis rotundata of 

 Fabricius. He places it next to Apis longicornis^ 

 and says of it " Cette abeille a beaucoup de rap- 

 port avec la precedente;" and again, " Le levre 

 superieure et le devant de la tete de I'insecte sont 

 d'unjaunecitron(a)." Both of which circumstances 

 agree well with A. rotundata, but not at all with 

 M. succincta. Gmelin and Villars refer to another 

 (a) Hist, Ins, Par„ tom.2. p,413, n. 11. 



synonym 



