174 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Mousehold tliree years ago; this year they Hterally swarmed, 

 not only on Mousehokl, but all round Norwich. This species 

 seems to be free from the attacks of the parasitic Stylops. I 

 suppose 1 handled over a hundred, but not one of them had 

 a Stylops, although they were in abundance in Andrena 

 alriceps and A. convexiuscula, both of which insects were 

 found in the same place, at the same time. 



Another Andrena was found in tolerable plenty at the 

 sallows. The male and female of this bee greatly resembles 

 the same sexes of Andrena dorsata, an insect not uncommon 

 at the flower of the bramble daring July and August. No 

 bee like this latter has yet been recorded, that I know of, as 

 having been captured in the early spring. Mr. F. Smith has 

 identified this as A. combinata of Kirby, at one time thought 

 to be a variety of the former insect. Kirby, unfortunately, 

 frequently omitted to give the date of capture, which has in 

 this and another instance given rise to a slight confusion of 

 species. 



1 have not troubled you with a more lengthy description of 

 these insects, because JNIr. Frederick Smith is preparing a 

 second edition of his ' Catalogue of British Bees,' and it will 

 then be done by a far abler pen than mine, and, what is more 

 important, correctly so. With these, at the sallows, the rare 

 Andrena Smithella was not uncommonly found. 



At Brundall, in the middle of April, I took a Nomada, 

 which, 1 believe, is new to Britain. It is not much unlike 

 N. lateralis; the latter, however, occurs about a month later. 

 I am sorry to say the rough bank" on which I found the two 

 specimens (females) is now cut away to make a railway- 

 siding. Though these species of Andrena were plentiful, 

 many of the early ones were hardly represented: of Andrena 

 Gwynana and A. parvula, which generally abound on the first 

 fine day towards the end of March, scarcely a specimen was 

 to be found. Kirby divided these little bees into three 

 species, — Parvula, Nana, and Minutula ; but recent writers 

 have considered Parvula as simply a variety of Minutula. 

 This appears to me to be an error, probably caused by the 

 absence of a record of dates of the api)earance of these 

 species of Andrena. This genus, as I have before observed, 

 has, as a rule, but one brood in the year, and the three 

 species appear successively, commencing with the earliest 



