144 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
A NEW BEE OF THE GENUS MEGACHILE FROM 
AFRICA. 
By T. D. A. CockEeretu. 
Megachile ekuivella, n. sp. 
@. Length about 9mm.; black, with a short broad heart-shaped 
abdomen; face broad, eyes prominent, converging below; sides of 
face, cheeks, and base of mandibles with copious snow-white hair 
(that on face varying in some specimens to yellowish); vertex with 
fuscous hair; mandibles with three evident teeth, but the fourth or 
inner one obsolete; clypeus densely punctured, but with a median 
rather elevated smooth shining band; front very densely rugoso- 
punctate; antenne black; mesothorax and scutellum as densely 
punctured as is possible, dullish, with short hair, mixed dark fuscous 
and pale ochreous, the latter predominating ; sides and under part of 
thorax, and femora, with white hair; hair on inner side of tarsi 
orange: hind basitarsus broadened and flattened ; claws with a basal 
tooth ; tegule dark fuscous in the middle, hyaline and reddish on the 
margin; wings dusky, nervures black; abdomen with entire orange- 
fulvous hair bands on the apical margins of the segments ; last dorsal 
segment with black bristles; ventral scopa bright orange-fulvous, 
white basally, black on last segment. 
With the females comes a male, assumed to be conspecific :— 
3. Hair of head and thorax above mixed black and white, not 
ochreous; hair-bands of abdomen white, with coarse black hair on the 
discs between them ; antennz slender, black; wings strongly dusky ; 
anterior tarsi simple ; anterior coxee without spines; claws cleft, the 
inner tooth the smaller; carina of sixth abdominal segment jagged, 
with little truncate spines or teeth, three or four on each side, the 
median interval rounded, but not especially large; no subapical 
spines or teeth beneath. 
Hab. Hinterland of Benguella, January 38rd, 1908, female 
type (Wellman) ; Ekuiva Valley, five females, one male; two of 
the females at flowers of Composite (Wellman). 
This little species is related to M. caricina, Ckll., but is 
smaller, and easily distinguished in the female by the mainly 
pale ochreous hair of the scutellum (that of caricina being coarse 
and black) and the orange-fulvous abdominal hair-bands. The 
male differs conspicuously in the jagged carina of sixth abdo- 
minal segment. M. venusta, Smith, judging by the description, 
seems to have many points of resemblance, but the abdominal 
bands are white in venusta, and the scopa is not black apically. 
Even closer resemblance may be found in M. cordata, Smith, 
from Natal, but Smith makes no mention of any black or fuscous 
hair on the dorsal surface. 
