364 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



reached maturity. The species was very similar in size and appearance 

 to Termes flavipes Kollar ; the color yello\yish-white, and the head and 

 prouotum narrower than in that species. 



At Caiion City, a beautiful honey-bee, AjHs fasciata^ was moderately 

 common upon the flowers of a great variety of plants. It struck me as 

 an interesting fact that in no single instance was this insect to be seen 

 upon the flower of Hellantlms, although I examined every flower of 

 this kind that was in bloom over a tract of surface two miles long by 

 more than a quarter of a mile wide. In no other place did I meet with 

 a single specimen of honey-bee of the genus Apis. Humble-bees were 

 very rare ; the only one seen was a rubbed specimen of Bombus ternarius 

 Say, flying in Beaver Brook Gulch. There was, however, a rich repre- 

 sentation of forms in the genera Melissocles, Megachile, Anthidium, Colletes, 

 etc. Some of the smaller Apidce were extremely abundant, and at least 

 one form was found in each locality. They all frequented the flowers, 

 being most abundant upon the plains in places where the plants were 

 numerous and of various kinds. The great heads of small pink flowers 

 of the Polanisia were sometimes swarming near Denver with several 

 varieties of Aculecita, such as Priononyx, Mi/zine. PoUstes, etc. A new 

 species of Panurgus, about one-fourth of an inch in length, with slender 

 yellow bands across the abdomen, lodged on the white flowers of the 

 white-bordered Euphorbia near Denver, being found nowhere else. 

 While another species of that genus, of a little larger size, and having 

 interrupted whitish bands across the abdomen, was equally common at 

 Canon City upon another totally different looking Euphorbiaceous plant, 

 but was not seen north of this place. Sd many forms of both plants 

 and insects are found only in the one or other of the two regions north 

 and south of the divide — as, for example, the one represented by the 

 vicinity of Denver, and the other by the country around Canon City — 

 that I am induced to believe that they constitute parts of distinct areas 

 of distribution. 



Permit me to remark, in conclusion, that the parts of Eastern Col- 

 orado, within the reach of irrigation, might be made the greatest honey- 

 producing garden of this continent. The great numbers of bee-like 

 Hymenoptera already there, and the astonishing variety and abundance 

 of flowering plants, growing even upon the almost arid soils, point to 

 this as the natural home of the bee-culturist. 

 Yery respectfully, yours, 



P. R. L^HLER. 



Prof. F. V. Hatden, 



TJ. S. Geologist-in-charge. 



