288 W. H. Patton on the Genus Macropis. 



flight also. But repeated observations in the field, under the 

 most favourable circumstances, have satisfied me that their 

 flight is perfectly silent. Yet Shuckard is not correct when 

 he says the other Andrenida3 are mute ; for I have observed 

 that certain species of Colletes, G. armata, mihi, and G. com- 

 pacts. Cress., and possibly some of the larger species of An- 

 drena, make, during flight, a distinct hum, much like that of 

 the honey-bee. 



Up to the present time no French* or English author has 

 questioned the validity and naturalness of the two groups 

 Abeille and Proabeille, into which Reaumur divided all the 

 bees. Kirby adopted this classification, employing the 

 names Apis and Melitta ; Latreille adopted it under the names 

 Apiarice and Andrenetce) and all subsequent authors have 

 employed the same classification, either under these names 

 or under Leach's family names Apidse and Andrenidse. Yet 

 the only characters given for separating the Apidffi and An- 

 drenidae which are not entirely erroneous are : — 



Apidce : labium longer than mentum, basal joints of labial 

 palpi elongate, labium slender and not flattened. 



Andrenidce : labium shorter than mentum, basal joints of 

 labial palpi not unlike the following joints, labium 

 flattened. 



But in the genus Scrapter (placed among the Andrenida) 

 the palpi are precisely as in Calliopsis (placed among the 

 Apidaj), and, as I have observed, the labium in repose is 

 of precisely the same length — in both extending to the tip 

 of the basal joint of the palpi. The greater breadth of the 

 labium in Scrapter can alone determine to which family it 

 belongs ; and this difference in breadth is imaginary rather 

 than real. Moreover, in the genera Megalopta and Oxisto- 

 glossa, and some groups of the genus Nomia (genera placed 

 among the Andrenidaj), the labium is as slender as in the 

 Apida? ; and in the genus Hyleoides (placed among the An- 

 drenida?) the joints of the labial palpi are proportioned just as 

 in certain of the Apidse. 



Rejecting, therefore, the families Andrenidaa and Apidge, 

 and without proposing, at present, a more natural classifica- 

 tion for the Anthophila, Macropis may be removed from 

 connexion with the short-tongued bees and placed between 

 the Andrenoides and Scopulipedes. In the greater number of 

 its characters it is allied to the Andrenoides ; but in single 

 characters of great value it bears relationship to other very 



* As Lepeletier failed to recognize the Bees as a natural group, he 

 cannot be said to have presented any classification of them. 



