APID^. yjf 



ture ■witli the sagitt^e formed much as in pratorum, their 

 apices being incurved in a sickle-like form, the lacinia is 

 produced and parallel-sided, its apex obliquely truncate, 

 the squama is somewhat square, its inner apical angle 

 dentately produced; legs clothed with pale hairs, posterior 

 metatarsi with rather short fine hairs, not constricted at 

 the base as in soroensis. 



$ very like that sex of pratorum, but with the face 

 shorter and squarer, the outer margin of the cheeks between 

 the eyes and mandibles more parallel, and the black abdo- 

 minal band narrower, confined to the third segment. I have 

 not seen a worker. 



L. 14-15 mm. 



Southend; Brighton Downs ; Bristol; {Smith). Suffolk; 

 {Kirbtj). 



B. SOroensis, Fabr. — This species is probably amongst 

 the most variable of the genus in the colour of the pubes- 

 cence, and great confusion has been caused by this varia- 

 bility ; in some varieties the whole insect is clothed with 

 black hairs except the apex of the abdomen, which is 

 clothed with whitish, in others the thorax has a wide yellow 

 band in front, the second segment of the abdomen, and 

 sometimes also the first being yellow, the third black, the 

 fourth and following segments white, or white with a narrow 

 red line at the basebetween the white and the black, or red, 

 but there is no record of this last variety having been taken 

 in Britain ; in the (J the apex of the abdomen is often 

 clothed with nearly pink hairs, which gives it a most 

 characteristic appearance. The following structural cha- 

 racters will distinguish it from its allies. 



<J . This sex may be known at once by the very peculiar 

 form of its posterior metatarsi, these are slender, straight on 

 their lower margin, very narrow at the base and of the ordi- 

 nary width at the apex, the upper margin curving gradually 

 npwards to the apex ; in the other species, except terrestris, 

 which has the metatarsi broad and fringed with short hairs, 

 the upper margin is subparallel with the lower one, and 



