254 [November, 



specimens ; Mr. Backmaster also secured some afterwards. Since it has, I believe, 

 on one occasion been reported from Visp, it appears probable that it may be found 

 in suitable localities all along the Zermatt Valley, as well as at Berisal. St. Nicolas 

 is very good hunting ground, and many other good things are numerous. Unfortu- 

 nately I left the afternoon of the day of my captures, and was not able to follow up 

 my success. But with the railway up to the door of a most comfortable and 

 moderate hotel (" The Grrand," Otho Zumofeen, Proprietor), and in the centre of 

 the Zermatt Valley, St. Nicolas is, as some know, a very El Dorado for entomologists. 

 — F. E. Lowe, St. Stephen's Vicarage, Guernsey : September, 1898. 



£ombus Smithianus near Rye. — I happened to be in the marshes near Rye on 

 August 25th, when the marsh mallow was blooming profusely on the banks of the 

 ditches. The flowers were very attractive to the males of several Bomhi, the 

 commonest being B. terrestris, lapidarius, and a bright yellow species which, on 

 examination, proved to be B. Smithianus, pale form. I visited these marshes again 

 on September 8th, when this species was again found to be quite one of the commonest 

 on the wing. On neither occasion did I take a single male of the very similarly 

 coloured B. venustus, which in most places in the south is the only species of the 

 two met with. I took, however, on the last occasion two workers and a female — 

 the former on marsh mallow, the latter on lucerne, which, under the circumstances, 

 I feel convinced are genuine specimens of B. Smithianus. The female is a larger 

 and more heavily built insect than females of venustus from this neighbourhood, the 

 hairs are denser and more even, and on the abdomen much more erect than in 

 venustus. It is entirely clothed with pale hairs, of a yellower tint than in venustus, 

 with the exception of the bright fulvous patch on the dorsal surface of the thorax. 

 This fulvous patch is brighter than in venustus, and it extends over a smaller area, 

 being surrounded by the pale yellow hairs, a broad band of which in front and 

 another behind, each shading off into the fulvous, gives both sexes of this pale form 

 of Smithianus a very distinct appearance. Two females which I took in a field of 

 late red clover near Kingsdown in September, 1895, agree with the female taken at 

 Eye in the above particulars, and I think there can be no doubt that they are also 

 examples of Smithianus, especially as this species is not unknown from this neigh- 

 bourhood, the Rev, P. D. Morice having taken two males at Kingsdown in August, 

 1892. A very dark worker of B. venustus, with the hairs on the thorax almost 

 black, fell to my net at St. Margai'et's Bay in August last. The dark variety of 

 venustus is, I believe, rare in this country. — F. W. L. Sladen, Eipple Court, E.ing- 

 would, Dover : September, 1898. 



Since the above was written my brother has brought me some Bombi he has 

 just taken at Mount Oassel, Flanders, amongst them two females exactly similar to 

 the one described above, a male of Smithianus being in the batch, while there was 

 not one of venustus, though several of agrorum. A worker received from Friese, 

 and labelled " muscorum (= cognatus, Fabr.)" — both of which names seem to be 

 applied to this species on the continent — has also a very distinct ring of yellow hairs 

 surrounding the patch of fulvous in the centre of the thorax, and one might almost 

 be tempted to consider this a specific character by which B. Smithianus could be 

 easily recognised, were it not that in its typical form found in Shetland-^in which 



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