30 PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION 



(3) Madagascar species : Antliopliora antimcna. 



The Aldabra fauna seems not to have been contaminated by human introductions. 

 It is in strong contrast with that of the Comoro Islands, some 200 miles to the south-west. 

 From the Comoros Friese (1907) records Apis mellif'eni L., A. unicolo7- Latr., Halictus 

 2 spp. not determined, Megachile rujive7itris Guer., Gronoceras felina Gerst., Mesotrichia 

 caffra L. (I suppose really incerta Perez), M. olivacea Spinola, and M. lateritia Klug, — 

 an essentially African fauna, with nothing precinctive, unless the undetermined species of 

 Halictus are so. 



Here, as in the Pacific, it is noted that many of the insular bees are such as habitually 

 nest in wood, e.g. Megachile, Ceratina and Mesotrichia. It is probable that they have 

 sometimes been carried across the sea by floating trees containing the nests. In the case 

 of the Sej^chelles, it appears that they might receive material from the Malay region, the 

 equatorial current setting west and ultimately north-west. On the other hand there are 

 apparently currents also from the African coast region. No current, however, flows from 

 India to the Seychelles and, so far as the bees go, there may be said to be no truly Indian 

 element in the fauna. 



The bee-fauna of the Maldives is frankly Oriental, and quite distinct from that of the 

 Seychelles. 



Family Andrenidae. Subfamily Sphecodinae. 



Sphecodes Latreille. 



1. Sphecodes scotti, sp. nov. 



$. Length about 7 — 7^ mm., very slender, looking like a male; head rather large, 

 approximately circular seen from in front, black, with the clypeus, lower part of supra- 

 clypeal area, labrum and mandibles all clear ferruginous ; lower margin of clypeus with 

 long shining hairs ; sides of face broadly covered with appressed silvery (faintly yellowish) 

 pubescence ; ocelli moderate ; front with dense extremely minute punctures, and a tendency 

 to striae ; third and fourth antennal joints extremely short, broader than long, fourth at 

 least twice as broad as long ; second longer than third ; scape with the basal two-thu'ds 

 red ; flagellum shining black, dull reddish beneath at extreme base ; mesothorax shining, 

 finely punctured, parapsidal grooves distinct ; the surface between the punctures is micro- 

 scopically tessellate ; thorax with a fine short hoary pubescence at sides and behind, but 

 very free from hair ; mesothorax black, its middle third reddish or wholly dark red ; 

 scutellum small, red ; postscutellum and upper part of metathorax black, the rest of 

 thorax, including prothorax, pleura &c., all clear red ; metathorax long, the basal area 

 elongate, defined by the absence of the small branched hairs which clothe the adjacent 

 parts, its sculpture consisting of a fine raised reticulation ; legs red, with little hair (no 

 scopa), middle and hind tibiae and basitarsi strongly blackened ; tegulse shining ferru- 

 ginous ; wings ample, pale dusky, nervures and stigma piceous ; stigma large ; first r.n. 

 joining second s.m. far beyond middle but well before end ; second r.n. joining third s.m. 

 slightly or well beyond middle ; submarginal cells variable ; abdomen narrow, brilliantly 

 shining, clear red beneath, above fuscous with the basal half of first segment (except more 



