198 [September, 



fortunate enough to meet with several in the spring of 1893 at the flowerB of Lotus 

 corniculatus with the ? , and at this moment I have a series of males that have 

 emerged, and females which are emerging, from some tubes formed of rose leaves, 

 cut out of an old stem of a broom plant kindly sent to me last autumn by Mr. W. 

 H. Tuck, of Bury St. Edmunds, who saw the ? making its nest there ; about five 

 males emerged from July 2nd to 5th, and to-day (the 7th) the females are coming 

 out, four having already made their appearance. The stem was of nearly rotten 

 wood, about three inches in diameter, and in it were five distinct tubes ; whether 

 these were all the work of one female I do not know, they vary much in length, 

 two being three inches long at least, and the others from one and a half to two. 

 The year before last Mr. Tuck also sent me a Megachile-hored broom stem, but 

 somehow the insects died before emergence. This species does not always make its 

 burrows in wood, as I have myself caught a $ at Woking emerging from a hole in 

 a sandy bank. 



The (? resembles that of centuncularis, Linn., very closely, but the fringes of 

 white hairs on the ventral segments are much less dense, in fact, hardly noticeable, 

 whereas in centuncularis they catch the eye at once, and the sagittee of the armature 

 are shorter and less produced at the apex; the ? has the abdomen blunt at the 

 apex, as in Willuglibiella, but with the pollen brush of the bright red colour of that 

 of centuncularis, tlie apex of it, however, is black, the mandibles also are convex and 

 shortly grooved, as in the centuncularis group. 



BOMBTTS. 



In this genus the synonymy of our tawny species requires revision. 



Smithianus, White, I retain, as although Schmiedeknecht considers it as a 

 variety of alpinus, Linn., I think he must be wrong, as he says of the ^ of that 

 species that the posterior tibiro and tarsi are " longe fulvo pilosce," whereas in 

 Smithianus the hairs are short and black. Our species really more closely resembles 

 the continental cognatus (which is quite distinct from cognatus, Staph.), but the 

 black haired under-side and the shorter lacinia of tlie $ armature (judging from the 

 figures of J cognatus in Schmiedeknecht's and Hoffer's works) seem to me to point 

 to Smithianus being amply distinct. 



venustus, Smith, = variabilis, Schmicd., = cognatus, Saund., nee Steph. — There 

 appears to be no doubt of this synonymy, and Smith's name being older than 

 Schmiedeknecht's must stand. I have again carefully examined Stephens' type of 

 cognatus, and although from its immaturity it is very difficult to speak for certain, 

 still I am inclined to think from the uneven nature of its pubescence, that it is an 

 immature agrorum, and tlmt therefore the name should sink as a synonym of that 

 species. F. Smith has placed it in the B. M. Collection under agrorum, so he evi- 

 dently took the same view. 



agrorum. Fab., = muscorum, Saund., &c. — I have followed the continental 

 authors in the name of this species, as it is very doubtful which of the allied species 

 Linnaeus described, and tolerably clear what was meant by Fabricius, and therefore, 

 although the Fabrician name is the younger of the two, I think it is perhaps wiser 

 to adhere to it. 



72, St. John's Park, Blackheath : 

 July lOth, 1894. 



