Bees fr 07)1 the Rocky Mountain Reyion. 525 



not very grcatl}^ so ; mandibles stout, simple, more or less 

 reddened, tlie oraii<,^e streak minute; clypeus densely and 

 confluently punctured ; teguUe very dark red-brown. Wings 

 moderately dusky; first recurrent uervure joining second 

 submarginal cell about the beginning of its apical fourth ; 

 flagellum dark, only slightly reddened beneath. Of the 

 general build and appearance of M. machcerantherce, but 

 easily distinguished by the black legs, dark auteuuffi, &c. 

 It is also related to M. Sniithii (D. T.). 



Hub. Embudo, on the Kio Grande, New Mexico, Sept. 2G, 

 at flowers of Chrysothamnus, two specimens (Cockerell) . 



M. coinptoides, Rob., also has the pubescence of thorax with 

 no black dorsally, but fuscous or black beneath ; it is a much 

 smaller species (12-13 mm.) and occurs in Illinois. 



Melissodes helianthelli, sp. n. 



? . — Length almost 18 mm. 



Even more robust than M. chrysothumni, the thorax being 

 larger, and the abdomen broader basally ; pubescence of 

 head and thorax dense, erect, pale fulvous, quite bright 

 orange- fulvous on vertex (where there is no black) and 

 anterior part of mesothorax, white on face and cheeks, pale 

 orange on labrnm and underside of mandibles ; pallid, but by 

 no means white, on lower part of pleura and metathorax ; hiud 

 part of mesothorax with a rather small, strongly punctured 

 exposed area, having a few black hairs ; sciitellum, excejit the 

 margins exposed, dull and densely punctured, this area fringed 

 with coarse black hair ; hair of legs pale fulvous, without any 

 black ; the pale fulvous scopa of posterior legs very strongly 

 plumose ; hair on inner side of tarsi and of hind tibiae bright 

 ferruginous ; small joints of tarsi ferruginous. Abdomen 

 dullish; hair on first segment whitish and rather short, without 

 any black (in M. chrysothamni the hair at the base of the first 

 segment is strongly mixed with black); second, third, and 

 fourth segments with the portions overlapped by the segment 

 before covered with dense tomentum, which on the second is 

 white, on the third pale ferruginous, on the fourth dark 

 purplish fuscous ; basal part of second segment, narrowing 

 medially, with appressed white hair, a|)ical part glittering with 

 microscopic golden hairs ; third and fourth segments with 

 bioad white hair-bands, faintly stained with yellowish, that on 

 third more or less failing in the middle, these bands separated 

 from the basal tomentum in each case by a strijje of dark 

 fuscous; apical segments with the hair reddish chocolate, 

 extreme base of fifth black; venter with dark reddish hair. 



