8 Psyche [February 



differences due either to somatic and environmental influences or 

 to germinal modifying factors. There is, I believe, ample justifi- 

 cation for giving such fixed races a nomenclatural standing, as has 

 been the common practice for recent years. Moreover, European 

 students have profusely named the color forms of the palearctic 

 bumble-bees, and, with increasing interest in the study of distri- 

 butional problems, a similar course will undoubtedly be adopted 

 for the nearctic species. 



In the case of B. affinis var. novop-anglicp there is every reason 

 to believe that it is not based on freak specimens, but represents a 

 peculiar race, which, having been repeatedly collected, must not be 

 a great rp,rity in the vicinity of Boston and perhaps in some other 

 localities. Furthermore, Bonibus affinis varies, as a rule, but little 

 in its coloration, since Franklin, in his Monograph, does not men- 

 tion a single color- variant and even notes that "this species is very 

 constant in its character, a remarkable fact when the extreme vari- 

 ability of a large proportion of the species of the Terrestris group 

 is considered."^ I have examined over 150 specimens of B. affinis 

 from various localities in the states of New York, New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and North Caro- 

 lina, and, with the exception of the specimens described above, 

 have only found one aberrant male. This male, collected at Wood- 

 bury, N. Y., September 21, 1910, and belonging to the American 

 Museum of Natural History, shows a faint indication of a trans- 

 verse patch of ferruginous pile in the center and near the base of 

 the fourth tergite; the specimen is otherwise quite normal, but is 

 evidently a transition toward the var. novop-angliop. 



Since this paper was sent to the printer, I have been able to 

 examine several specimens of B. centralis Cresson and its var. 

 juxtus Cresson, from Colorado, in the collection of the American 

 Museum of Natural History. Such of these specimens as agree 

 best with the description of juxtus Cresson, are very similar in 

 coloration to the brightest individuals of B. affinis var. novce- 

 anglioe. B. centralis and B. juxtus are, however, at once separated 

 from B. affinis by their much longer oculo-malar space and by their 

 having yellow pile on face and occiput. Titus^ has recorded B. 

 JMX^M5 from Woods Hole, Mass.; but, as Franklin has pointed out, 



1 Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc, 38, 1913, p. 280. 

 2 Canadian Entomol., vol. 34, pp. 39 and 43 (1902). 



