BEES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 199 



it settles on a flower, or rests on some sunny bank, panting with 

 delight ? The eyes splendid as opals, could their brilliancy be 

 preserved, this bee would rival, and challenge admiration with 

 the most brilliant of its tribe. It is a local species, but abounds 

 in many localities ; it flies with incredible swiftness, darting from 

 flower to flower. 



We have in this country no other species of the genus Saro- 

 poda ; two other bees have usually been associated with it, but 

 they belong to the genus Anthophora. Saropoda, as charac- 

 terized by Latreille, has setiform labial palpi, the joints being 

 consequently continued in a straight line ; no other British bee 

 resembles it in this respect. 



1. Saropoda Mmacnlata. 



S. nigra, pallide villosa ; facie antice, oreque flavescentibus ; 

 ano tomentoso-incano. Mas, thorace fulvo-villoso, facie im- 

 maculata. 



Apis biraaculata, Panz. Faun. Germ. 55. 17 ^ . 



Kirby, Mon. Ap. Angl. ii. 286. 63 ? . 

 Apis rotundata, Panz. Faun. Germ. 56. 9 $ . 



Kirby, Mon. Ap. Angl. ii. 291. 66. 

 Anthophora biraaculata, Spin. Ins. Lig. i. 127. 6. 



St. Farg. Hym. ii. 36. 11. 

 Heliophila bimaculata, Klug, Illig. Mag. vi. 227. 

 Saropoda bimaculata, Curtis, Brit. Ent. viii. t. 361. 



Smith, Zool. iii. 891. 1. 



Female. Length 4^-5 lines. Black : the clypeus, labrum and 

 mandibles yellow ; the clypeus and the labrum have two qua- 

 drate black spots at their base ; the tips of the mandibles rufo- 

 piceous. Thorax : the disk clothed with fuscous pubescence, 

 that on its sides and beneath is palish yellow ; the legs dark 

 rufo-piceous, clothed above with pale yellowish- white pubes- 

 cence, at the tips of the femora a little short fulvous pubes- 

 cence ; the wings subhyaline, faintly clouded at their apical 

 margins. Abdomen subglobose, at the base a little pale fulvous 

 pubescence, the second and third segments have a fascia of 

 very short pubescence of the same colour ; the two following 

 have a clothing of very short cinereous pubescence, that at the 

 apex is black. B.M. 



Male. Length 4J lines. Black : the face below the insertion 

 of the antennae, the scape in front, the labrum and mandibles, 

 yellow, the tips of the latter ferruginous ; on the vertex and 

 disk of the thorax the pubescence is fulvous ; the wings as in 



