14 : THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
number of these two supposed species, in addition to the small 
series that have been captured at various times and places by 
myself. 
In my paper on British Crabronide (Trans. Ent. Soc. 1913, 
p. 888) I overlooked the fact that C. inermis, Thoms., had been 
introduced into our list by Mr. Morice, and I adopted the name 
Blepharipus nigrita, Lep. for C. pubescens, Shuck. After a 
careful examination of the material available, I believe that 
pubescens and inermis, as determined from British examples, are 
not specifically distinct, and that both are to be referred to 
nigrita, Lep. 
Thomson’s characters for the separation of the two forms 
are very feeble. C. pubescens, he says, only differs from inermis 
in being a little larger, with the scape of the antenne beneath, 
and the base of the hind tibie outwardly, pale yellowish white, 
the front of the head more hairy and subopaque. 
I have seen no specimen in which the scape is entirely 
black, for this on the posterior surface, which in the resting 
position lies against the head and is entirely concealed, is always 
largely and often entirely yellow. In the brightest female 
examples this colour extends as a complete line over the adjoin- 
ing outer surface, and this, I suppose, is the.form which should 
be referred to pubescens, but there are intermediates between 
these conditions. The colour of the hind tibie is equally vari- 
able, and while in the brightest specimens (pubescens) these may 
be pale yellow for nearly one-third of their length, or entirely 
black (¢nermis), most of the females examined are intermediate 
between these, with the pale colour often obscure (brownish or 
testaceous) and in various stages of reduction. The male some- 
times has the colour of the hind tibie as extensive as in the 
brightest females, but more often, apparently, they are only 
obscurely pale in this sex, and sometimes quite black. The 
sculpture of the front of the head in the female varies much. 
Following Thomson, the brightly coloured examples should have 
the front part of the head more hairy and dull. But one of the 
brightest-coloured examples that I have seen (Cobham, coll. 
Nevinson) has the front particularly smooth and shining, whereas 
the black-legged female, referred by Kohl to inermis (coll. Morice), 
has this part much duller, partly from the rather stronger 
punctuation, but chiefly from the evident minute sculpture of the 
surface between the punctures. Particularly interesting are a 
male and female taken at Tubney (Berks) by Mr. A. H. Hamm, 
on the very early date May 19th. The male has the hind 
tibiz whitish for nearly a third of their length from the base, 
but in the female there is only an obscurely yellowish spot 
inwardly. | 
As the special male characters, viz. the fringe of curved hairs 
on the anterior tibiz and the shorter ones on the metatarsus, 
