318 AMERICAN HYMENOPTKRA. 



tario (Ottawa), Manitoba (Winnipeg), the new province of 

 Saskatchewan (Oxbow, Regina, Carnduff and Prince Albert) 

 and Alberta (St. Albert and Macleod). What are its south- 

 ern limits in the Appalachian Mountain system and in the 

 Central States and its northern limits in Canada ? In west- 

 ern Canada it probably does not reach far beyond the eastern 

 slopes of the Rocky Mountains. It must be present in New 

 Brunswick, Rhode Island and Michigan. Say, in his original 

 discussion of the species, says it " Inhabits Indiana." I know 

 of no other record for it from the Upper Austral Zone and 

 this leads me to question the correctness of Say's statement. 

 No other species of Bombiis, known to me, answers Say's 

 description in all respects. It appears to be confined pretty 

 strictly to the Canadian and Transition Zones and is one of 

 the rarer forms throughout the greater part of its range of 

 habitat, though Prof. C. H. Fernald tells me it is one of the 

 most common species in southern Maine. A specimen in the 

 collection of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, which 

 I have been unable to determine as anything else than a 

 worker of this species, was collected, as Mr. C. C. Gowdey, 

 a former student in the Massachusetts Agricultural College, 

 tells me, by himself in Barbados, British West Indies. It 

 seems, however, as though there must be some mistake about 

 this. 



Nests. — I have not taken any nests of this species, but, 

 judging from Putnam's account, it seems probable that the 

 nests are usually built in structures, such as hollow stumps 

 or trees or in the walls of buildings. 



This species has its closest allies in : sylvicola, from which 

 it can be readily separated by its much shorter pile ; huntii, 

 from which it can be separated by its much darker head, by 

 the median V-like projection of the hind border of its inter- 

 alar band and by the difference in structure of the fiagellum 

 of the antenna of the male ; edwardsii, from which it can be 

 separated by its much darker head and black corbicular 

 fringes. 



The ferruginous pile on the second and third segments is 

 sometimes very much faded, so as to appear strongly yel- 

 lowish. 



