262 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



certain, and to add that I dare not as yet put any reliance on 

 first-band investigations in a matter in which my experience is 

 still so slight ; and, indeed, it is mostly for the sake of obiter 

 dicta, and with the hope of throwing out suggestions on which 

 more competent seekers may work, that I have thought it worth 

 while to enter on this part of the subject at all. 



(To be continued.) 



SOME VEEY SMALL AUSTKALIAN BEES. 



By T. D. a. Cockerell. 



In the vicinity of Mackay, Queensland, in March, 1900, 

 Messrs. Gilbert and Kowland Turner obtained three species of 

 very small bees at the flowers of Eucalyptus. They are all of 

 the Euryglossa type, but two of them are so peculiar in their 

 venation that they must be assigned to new genera. The 

 smallest of the three is only a little over 2^ mm. long, and is 

 smaller than any bee previously made known.* 



TURNERELLA, n. gCn. 



Minute bees allied to Euryglossa, but with only one submarginal 

 cell and two discoidals ; marginal cell sharply pointed on costa ; 

 stigma large ; section of basal nervure bounding first discoidal cell 

 strongly arched ; claws bidentate ; base of mandible making an angle 

 of about 45° with base of eye, so that the malar space cannot be 

 defined as in most bees. 



Tiirnerella gilherti, n. sp. 

 (J . Length about 2550 ja. ; head and thorax shining dark sepia 

 brown ; clypeus and mandibles (except apex) dull yellow ; legs pale 

 brownish yellow, anterior pair orange ; abdomen shining, the basal 

 half pale reddish brown, the apical much darker ; mesothorax minutely 

 tessellate, with scattered very feeble hair-punctures ; front and vertex 

 sculptured like mesothorax; abdomen microscopically transversely 

 lineolate ; eyes coarsely facetted ; ocelli large ; facial fovea3 repre- 

 sented by very short grooves, about 35 /j. long ; antennae placed close 

 together ; scape very short ; flagellum thick, long-claviform, minutely 

 hairy ; second antennal joint very large, oval, third very minute ; 

 mandibles bidentate ; scanty plumose hairs on face ; hairs at end of 

 abdomen with about three short branches, all on one side. Wings 

 clear hyaline, minutely hairy, stigma large, dilute brownish ; marginal 

 cell sharply pointed on costa, about 510 long (all the wing measure- 

 ments of this and the other species are in microns) ; depth of stigma 

 about 100 ; submarginal cell about 290 long, more than twice as long 



'*' Turnerella gilherti is not the smallest bee. Since writing the above I 

 have noted that Trigona duckei, Friese, from Brazil, is only 2 mm. long. 

 It may perhaps exceed T. gilherti in bulk, however. 



