BEES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 19 



wings hyaline, very faintly clouded at their apical margins; the 

 antennae submoniliform ; abdomen red, black both at the base 

 and apex. B.M. 



I had the good fortune to discover a colony of this insect, and 

 by watching it until the time when the males usually appear, at 

 length succeeded, in the month of August, in capturing both 

 sexes in the nest ; the females are readily distinguished by their 

 subquadrate heads from all the other species : the males are not 

 so easily distinguished ; they most closely resemble those of S. 

 gibbus, but their heads are not wider than the thorax, the an- 

 tennae proportionably shorter, and the wings are not fuscous as 

 in that species. 



This local insect has been found at Charlton in Kent, at Cam- 

 berwell, and in Yorkshire ; but it is a rare species, and seldom 

 met with. 



4. Sphecodes ephippia. 



S. ater, abdomine rufo, apice pedibusque nigro-piceis ; mandi- 

 bulis, tarsis, tibiisque anticis, rufescentibus. 



Sphex ephippia, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. 944. 22, fide Cab. Mus. Linn. 



Soc. $ . 



Andrena Potentilla, Faun. Germ. 46. 14. 

 Melitta divisa, Kir by, Mon. Ap. Angl. ii. 49. \2$ . 

 Melitta Geoffrella, Kirby, Mon. Ap. Angl. ii. 45. 8 $ , 1. 15. f. 5 $ . 

 Sphecodes Geoffrellus, St. Farg. Hym. ii. 544. 4. 



Wesm. Obs. p. 7. 3. 



Nyland. Ap. Boreal. 194. 3. 



Smith, Zool. iii. 1014. 5<? ?. 

 Sphecodes divisus, Smith, Zool. iii. 1015. 6 $ $ . 

 Apis nigra, abdoraine rufo nitida, incisuris nigris, Geoff. Ins. 

 Par. <J. 



Female. Length 2^-3 lines. Head and thorax black, shining, 

 delicately punctured, closely so on the head, but scattered on 

 the disc of the thorax ; the flagellum, except a few of the basal 

 joints, fulvous beneath ; the wings subhyaline, splendidly iri- 

 descent, the nervures and tegulae rufo-testaceous ; the legs 

 fusco-ferruginous, the knees and the tarsi pale ferruginous. 



Male. Length 1 2 lines. This sex is coloured the same as 

 the female, but is more strongly punctured on the head and 

 thorax ; the antennae submoniliform, the flagellum fulvous be- 

 neath ; the abdomen more or less black at the base and apex, 

 having sometimes an immaculate red space between, or one or 

 two transverse black fasciae. 



