770 BOSTON JOURNAL 



ascertain its proper form. The honey had a pleasant taste, and 

 as far as I could gather from their gestures, the nest was obtained 

 from a tree. Some of the specimens above described I found 

 crawling feebly away, and others I extracted frem the cells in a 

 perfect state. 



The trophi agree with those of the P. nigrlpennis Oliv., except- 

 ing that the obliquely truncated portion of the mandibles is a lit- 

 tle longer, and the terminal joint of the labial palpi is e((ual to 

 the preceding joint. 



I had made the above description and remarks before an op- 

 portunity offered to compare the individuals with Latreille's de- 

 scription of his P. hrhajitana (Ann. des [391] Sc. Nat. torn. 4, 

 p. 335,) which I find it closely resembles, and to which I shoilld 

 refer it, but for the character attributed to that insect of having 

 only the " bord postcricur dcs cinq premiers anncaux dc I'abdo- 

 luen jaune," whilst all the segments of the tergum of our species 

 are margined with yellow, and the anal segment is also of that 

 color, in all the specimens which I have seen ; all the segments 

 of the venter, moreover, are margined with the same color ex- 

 cepting the basal one. These differences induce me not to with- 

 hold this description, as wc may reasonably infer that others 

 t'xist, which can be detected only by comparison. Whether this 

 species is the artificer of either of the nests figured by Hernan- 

 dez and copied by Latreille in Humboldt's Zoology, I cannot 

 determine, but it seems highly probable. The observation of La- 

 treille relative to the insects that construct those nests, (or at 

 least one of them, for they are very unlike each other) seems ju- 

 dicious, that " j'ai lieu de soupgonner que ces insectes sont iden- 

 tique ou peu differens," from his P. lecheguana. 



COLLETES Latr. Klug. 

 C. iN.«QUALis. — Labrum with four indentations near the base. 

 Inhabits Indiana. 



9 Body black with pale cinereous hair : labrum on the basal 

 half, with four obvious indentations ; thorax with the hair dusky 

 <m the disk ; wings hyaline ; nervures fuscous : tergum with 

 very short dusky hair ; that of the anterior portion of the basal 

 segment, and on each side of that segment, longer and whitish or 



[Vol. I. 



