176 THE HUMBLE-BEE vill 
Most of the little differences that separate 
ruderatus from hortorum—namely, the larger size 
of the queens, the deeper tint of the yellow bands, 
the shorter, less shaggy coat, and the greater ten- 
dency to disappear in the north—are similar to 
those that divide ¢errestris from lucorum. The 
parallelism extends even to the habits, for the 
queens of ruderatus appear in their greatest num- 
bers later in the spring than those of hortorum, 
also they are more prolific, and the colonies are 
more populous and break up later. Auderatus, like 
terrestris, flourishes under a great variety of con- 
ditions; its distribution extends to the north coast 
of Africa, and even to Madeira, and it was success- 
fully introduced with ¢errestvis into New Zealand 
in 1885. 
The black variety is not a different race from 
the banded variety, but both are often produced by 
the same parent. 
A colony taken by Tuck at Bury St. Edmunds 
on September 10, 1898, out of a mole’s nest “quite 
five feet away from the entrance-hole,” was ex- 
amined by Saunders and the result recorded in the 
Entomologist's Monthly Magazine for November 
1898. It contained 8 queens of the variety having 
obscure yellow bands on the front and back of the 
thorax, and the 4th segment of the abdomen dusky 
white ; 3 black queens, 19 banded workers, 14 
black workers, 1 banded male, and 1 black male. 
A populous colony that I took at Ripple on 
July 7, 1911, contained 51 banded workers and 
