HENRY J. FRANKLIN. 237 



Species of this family. On account of the difficulties met in 

 arranging the species, some have been led to think that hy- 

 brids are common. The writer has never yet seen a single 

 specimen of this family which, in his opinion, was a hybrid. 

 Sufficiently thorough examination will usually enable one, 

 who is familiar with the various species, to determine accu- 

 rately to what species an aberrant specimen belongs, if the 

 specimen is in good condition. It is often impossible to de- 

 termine specimens, which are in very poor condition, and 

 males which are extremely aberrant sometimes cannot be 

 identified. Some of the more common and striking abnor- 

 malities are here described. 



Males of many species, particularly of the Pratorum group, 

 frequently sport in such a way as to have practically all their 

 pile yellow. The writer has seen males of ternarius and of 

 mixtus in this condition and they never could have been 

 identified had it not been for their characteristic antennae. 



The writer has before him two queens of bimaculatus both 

 of which were collected in Amherst, Mass., which have 

 sported, in a peculiar way, in the coloration of the pile on the 

 dorsum of the abdomen. One of these specimens has a patch 

 of white pile on the second segment extending over the 

 whole left side of the segment from the middle line to the 

 side margin and another patch of the same color on the 

 fourth segment extending from the middle line to the right 

 side margin and from the front to the hind margin of the 

 segment. The other specimen has a yellowish-white patch 

 on the right side of the fourth segment of the same size and 

 limits as the patch similarly located on the first specimen, 

 but it has no abnormal coloration on the second segment. 



Mimicry. 

 Numerous species of flies, of the family Syrphidae, are much 

 like bumble-bees in their appearance, as they have a cover- 

 ing of yellow and black pile. Some species also have some 

 ferruginous hairs as do many species of Bombus. A few 

 species of this family approach some species of Bombtis, 

 pretty definitely in their coloration and it seems fair to sup- 

 trans. AM. ENT. see, XXXVIII. 



