344 HYMENOPTERA ACULEATA. 



perfectly smooth within and coated or lined with a liquid 

 secretion by the parent bee which prevents the mixture of 

 pollen and honey deposited in a semifluid state from being 

 absorbed. 



£. longicornis, Linn. — Black, head and thorax punc- 

 tured, densely clothed with fulvous brown hairs, paler 

 beneath, clypeus and labrum in the S yellowish white, and 

 the antennfe very long, nearly reaching to the apex of the 

 body, each joint of the flagellum slightly curved, those of 

 the ? short, only reaching to the tegulte ; wings slightly 

 clouded ; abdomen closely and rugosely punctured, convex 

 in the ^, less convex and wider in the ?, S with the 

 first and second segments clothed with long fulvous hairs, 

 the rest with short brownish black hairs, ? with the first 

 and second clothed with dull brownish hairs, the rest with 

 black, each segment with a lateral band of paler hairs at 

 the apex, those of the fourth segment nearly meeting in 

 the centre, band of the fifth entire and golden, beneath 

 clothed in both sexes with pale hairs, the apical segments 

 of the ? with golden, S with a black somewhat quadrate 

 tubercle on each side of the seventh segment at the apex, 

 eighth shining, its apex subtruncate, with a narrow central 

 emargination, armature with each stipes produced into a 

 very narrow subfihform process, bent inwards near the 

 apex, sagittae wide and triangular ; legs clothed with pale 

 hairs, calcaria pale. 



L. 15-16 mm. 



Local, but abundant in many places, and widely distri- 

 buted, it appears in May ; Numada sexfasciata occurs 

 with it as an inquiline. 



MELECTA, Latr. 

 I have altered the position of this genus because the 

 structure of the mouth parts, and the general form of the cj 

 armature, certainly ally it with Anthoi'hora, with which 



