6 Psyche [February 



facture of cerumen. At Patulul I saw it similarly engaged in 

 large numbers in an open latrine. This, as also the similar habit 

 of T. ruficrus corvina described below, raises the question as to 

 whether some of the baneful effects recorded by South American 

 observers as the result of eating the honey of stingless bees, may 

 not have been due to pathogenic bacteria which had been worked 

 by the bees into the cerumen walls of their honey pots and had 

 contaminated their contents. At any rate, from what I have 

 seen of this bee at Escuintla and Patulul, I have no doubt that, 

 under certain conditions, it might become, like the house fly, a 

 menace to public health through disseminating the germs of 

 typhoid and other enteric diseases. 



According to Silvestri, the typical T. bipimctata is called "tom- 

 buna," "mandaguay,"or "tapezua" by the natives of the La Plata 

 Basin. The spout of the nest is described as being 8-15 cm. long 

 and 3-5 cm. broad. Von Ihering gives the native Brazilian name 

 of this bee as "tubuna" and calls attention to its hair-twisting 

 proclivities. He says that it often annoys people also by alighting 

 on their skin far from the nest and imbibing their perspiration. 

 He notices its fondness for visiting carrion and excrement and its 

 disagreeable odor. 



Trigona pectoralis Dalla Torre. 



A single colony of this bee was found nesting a couple of feet 

 from the ground in the hole of a large tree growing on the bank of 

 a very shady ditch near Escuintla, Guatemala. The entrance 

 had a well-defined cerumen spout about an inch long. When dis- 

 turbed the bees assaulted me and buzzed about in my hair, mous- 

 tache and eyebrows. They all left me as soon as I had moved 

 about 20 feet from the nest. 



Trigona pectoralis panamensis Cockerell. 



At Ancon, C. Z. this species was seen visiting the yellow flowers 

 of a great curcurbitaceous vine which covers the entrance to the 

 Hotel Tivoli. The bees were very numerous early in the morning 

 and seemed to prefer the wilted and partially closed flowers. 

 By 10 a.m. they had all diappeared and did not revisit the flowers 

 till early the next morning. 



