26s APIS. (**. c. 2. 3.) 



if they are compared wth the description it gives 

 of them. The colour of the head and trunk of the 

 female varies, in some it is black, in others violet, 

 the wings are sometimes transparent with a brown 

 cloud at their tips, and sometimes they arc brown, 

 clouded with white; in his specimens, these were, 

 as he informs us aftenvards, " transparentes et sans 

 couleur," but as he extracted them, before their 

 time, from the coccoons in which they were in- 

 closed, they were probably not come to their pro- 

 per colour. My opinion, derived from this illus- 

 trious author, of the identity of ^. ccendescens and 

 A. cenea, is still further confirmed by this circum- 

 stance, that the former is always a female, and the 

 latter, as invariably, a male insect. 



Linneus to his A. aerulescens applies the term 

 '' fusca," which will not agree with our specimens, 

 nor indeed with that preserved in the Linnean cabi- 

 net, but rn his description in the Fauna Suecica, 

 he says, *^ Corpus totum atrunij caerulesccns, im- 

 maculatum." 



Many authors have looked upon GeofFroy's Apis 

 tola viridi-cuprea (r) as synonymous with the male 

 of our insect, but his description appears to me at 

 variance with it, for he says of his "Elle est medio- 

 crement velue. Les poils du bord des anneaux du 

 ventre sont blancs." Whereas A. ccnea is very 



(r) Hist. Ins. Par. 2, p. 415. n. 15. Apis cuprca. Fourcroy. 

 Ent. Far. n. 15. 



hairy^ 



