on BOMBUS RUDERATUS 177 
4g black workers, and the old queen was of the 
obscurely-banded variety. In June 1911 I took a 
nest in which the old queen was entirely black, and 
kept it under observation. All the workers pro- 
duced were of the banded variety, and all the first 
males produced were black; but later some males 
of the yellow variety appeared—these were prob- 
ably the young of the workers. On July 17, 1911, 
I took a nest in which the old queen was of the 
lightest variety; it contained 33 workers and 3 
males, all banded. 
In a strong nest found by Mr. Hamm near 
Dorchester, Oxon, in 1grt, all the individuals were 
black. 
It is probable that the proportion of banded to 
black individuals produced by each queen follows 
Mendel’s Law. It is very remarkable that the 
workers and males should be sharply dimorphic, 
while the queens show every degree of variation. 
The black variety is said not to occur on the 
Continent. 
In the north of Italy and eastwards into Styria 
a remarkable variety of raderatus, named argzllaceus, 
exists. In the queen of this variety the yellow 
bands on the front and back of the thorax are very 
wide, the abdomen is entirely black, and the wings 
are dark brown; but the workers and males are 
coloured like the ordinary banded variety. Hoffer 
says that argzllaceus, with terrestris, has the largest 
number of individuals in the nests. A_ beautiful 
nest brought to him by his brother in the year 1881 
2 
