Vol. XXV] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. I5I 



New American Bees of the Genus Halictus (Hym.). 

 By Mrs. Marion Durbin Ellis, Boulder, Colorado. 



(Continued from page 104.) 



Halictus pallidellus sp. nov. 



5 Length 5.5 mm. Head and thorax rather light metallic blue, 

 the mesonotum with a tinge of brassy green. Abdomen brown, the 

 margins of the segments pale testaceous. 



Face round, a little broader than long, closely punctured except on 

 the vertex, which is very shiny, cheeks and face with abundant short 

 white hair. Flagellum testaceous. 



Mesonotum very shiny, punctures only moderately fine, and well 

 separated, especially scattered just mesad of the parapsidal grooves, 

 median groove distinct. No rim around the disc of the metathorax. 

 Basal area without a true rim, the margin broadly rounded and very 

 shiny, a narrow crescent-shaped area lying next to the post-scutellum 

 finely roughened and with short indistinct plicae appearing very slightly 

 depressed near the middle. Tegulae pale testaceous, impunctate. 



Wings milky white, stigma and nervures very pale yellow, costal and 

 marginal nervures light brown. 



Legs dark brown, the tarsi testaceous. 



Abdomen shiny brown, all the segments finely and sharply punctured, 

 all except the disc of the first and the middle of the second segment, 

 with abundant short white hair. 



Pubescence not long but abundant throughout and everywhere pure 

 white. 



Habitat. — .Roswell, New Mexico, i (type), and i cotype, 

 at flowers of plum, April 14 (T. D. A. Cockerell). 



The affinities of this bee are uncertain ; the shiny meta- 

 thorax, along with the very shiny mesonotum in which the 

 punctures become more scattered along the parapsidal grooves, 

 and the posterior margins of the segments, together with the 

 short face, seem to place it in the same group with H. zephynis 

 Smith, H. semihrunneus Ckll., and H. crassiceps Ellis, from all 

 of which the milky wings and the abundant white pubescence 

 readily separate it. It is smaller than either H. pruinosiformis 

 Crawford, or H. alhohirtus Crawford, both species with milky 

 wings and pale pubescence {H. priiinosifonnis also has the dark 

 costal and marginal nervures), from which the non-rugulose 

 basal area of the metathorax also distinguishes it. 



Prof. Cockerell compared H. pallidelhis with the type of H. 



