SOME EUROPEAN FOSSIL BEES. 313 



The orange, yellowish, or whitish suffusion at the base of the 

 lunules, which is often brilliant in the type, disappears in these 

 specimens altogether, the borders then reminding somewhat of 

 the wing-borders in V. io. 



(To be continued.) 



SOME EUROPEAN FOSSIL BEES. 



By T. D. a. Cockerell. 



When recently in Ziirich I took the opportunity to make a 

 critical examination of a number of fossil bees described by Heer 

 from the Miocene of (Eningen.* For every facility in this work 

 I am indebted to the kindness of Professor Albert Heim, in whose 

 custody the collections are. The splendid collection of fossil 

 insects at the Ziu'ich Polytechnicum would afford opportunity for 

 many months of fruitful study, and it is much to be regretted 

 that it has been, and is so greatly, neglected by entomologists. 



Lithiirgus adamiticiis (Heer). 



Apis adamitica, Heer, Foss. Hym. aus (Eningen und PiadoboJ, 

 p. 4, taf. HI. fig. 11. Urwelt der Schweiz, f. 287. 

 This was described, and has since been cited by authors, as 

 a veritable Apis, closely related to the living honey-bee. An 

 examination of the type shows that the resemblance to Apis 

 is merely superficial, and, so far as can be seen, the insect 

 essentially agrees with Lithurgus. The shape of the abdomen 

 accords well with female Lithurgus : the abdomen is a little over 

 8 mm. long, 4 broad, truncate basally, pointed apically, as pre- 

 served warm red-browi/ with the first three sutures colourless ; 

 Heer's figure of the first segment shows the Lithurgus-\ike form. 

 The thorax is short, of the same colour as the abdomen ; the legs 

 are not visible. The wings seem short for the size of the insect; 

 the venation is only partly preserved. Marginal cell relatively 

 short, pointed, the end symmetrical, not approaching apex of 

 wing ; all this exactly as in Lithurgus, and different from Apis, 

 or even Megachile, the latter having the cell much more obtuse. 

 Stigma slightly developed, as in Lithurgus, the part projecting 

 over the marginal cell short, herein like L. atratijormis, Ckll.t 

 Basal nervure hardly deflected at the junction of the two sections, 

 and with the upper section relatively long ; all this as in L. 

 atratiformis, and contrasting with the European L. fuscipennis. 



''''• The fossil-beds, cited in all the literature as of ffiningen, are actually 

 on the hill above Wangen, and some distance from ffiningen. My wife and I 

 visited the place, and collected a series of fossils, but did not obtain any bees. 



f Specimens from Tahiti compared. 



