344 Dr. A. Gerstacker on the Geographical Distribution 



cincta, Smith ; 2. Apisflorea, Fab. (indica, Lat.), with its drone, 

 A. lobata, Smith. 



The first of the three East-Indian species, Apis dorsata, Fab., 

 is remai'kable for its size, as dry specimens measure 7| to 8| lines 

 in length. Freshly developed specimens, sent from Luzon by 

 Jagor, are of a light pitchy-brown colour all over the body and 

 legs, and their clothing of hair everywhere brownish grey ; the 

 wings are hyaline, with a distinctly greyish-brown tint. When 

 completely coloured, the head and antenna? are shining pitchy 

 black; vertex clothed with long, erect, deep blackish-brown 

 hair ; the border of the upper lip and mandibles has a reddish- 

 brown tint; the two frontal tubercles and the apices of the 

 scapes of the antennse pale rusty red. Ocelli remarkably large. 

 Thorax above, as far as the scutellum and sides of the breast, 

 with blackish-brown hairs; scutellum and metanotum with 

 tawny-yellow hairs. Anterior wings dark brown along the outer 

 margin, paler brown over the whole disk. Legs pitchy black, 

 fringed with hair of the same colour ; the brush on the inside of 

 the posterior tarsi cinnamon-red. The colouring of the abdomen 

 marks three varieties : — 



a. Abdomen above clothed with densely adpressed hairs, of a 



uniform yellow colour, or only a little more dusky, or rather 

 grey, at the apex ; beneath pitchy brown, rusty yellow to- 

 wards the base. Indigenous in Java. Described by Fabri- 

 cius (Eat. Syst. ii. p. 323. 64), in 1793, as Apis dorsata; 

 afterwards (1804) by Latreille (Ann. du Mus. v. p. 170. 4) 

 as A. nigripennis) . 



b. Abdomen with only the back of the first two segments yellow, 



and the rest blackish brown or nearly black, or with the 

 middle of the third segment also yellowish, and the base of 

 this and the following segment adorned with a transvei - se 

 band sprinkled with white. Upon this variety, figured by 

 Latreille (loc. cit. pi. 13. fig. 7), Klug (Mag. Gesellsch. 

 naturf. Freunde, i. p. 264) founded his A. bicolor, and 

 Guerin (Belanger's Voyage, Insectes, p. 504) his A. zonata. 

 It occurs with the preceding in Java, and also in Ceylon 

 (Nietner). 



c. Abdomen yellow only on the anterior part of the first seg- 



ment ; the remainder is deep black, with white-besprinkled 

 basal bands on the third, fourth, and fifth segments ; these 

 also pass to the lower surface. Examples of this variety 

 from Celebes are the largest, and others from Luzon the 

 smallest of all. Smith described the former under the name 

 of A. zonata (Proc. Linn. Soc. iii. p. 8). 



This is evidently the species mentioned by Knox, in his work 



