48 



if the blossom of the privet was properly searched during 

 the first fortnight in July, vS\ andreniformis would be taken. 



AUGUST $th, 1886. 

 J. JENNER Weir, Esq., F.L.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Mr. T. R. Billups exhibited male and female specimens 

 of Cleptes nitidtda, Latr. (PI. 1, fig. 11), and read the follow- 

 ing notes : — 



" Shuckard in his very excellent monograph on ■ the 

 Chrysididce, published in the ' Entomological Magazine ' in 

 the year 1836, speaking of the male of Cleptes nitidula says, 

 ' I can detect no difference between the insect I possess as 

 the male of this species, and the male of the preceding, C. 

 semiauratus, with the exception of the slighter exsertion of 

 the fifth abdominal segment, and the colour of the head and 

 thorax being more blue/ The late Frederick Smith, in his 

 short but concise monograph, published some twenty-five 

 years later — in the ' Entomologist's Annual ' for the year 186 1 — 

 says, ' the male I do not know/ As Shuckard gives no other 

 peculiarity or difference between the two species, I have taken 

 some little trouble to search, but can find no other written or 

 published description. This being so, it has led me to care- 

 fully examine a large number of the males of C. semiauratus, 

 but structurally I can find no difference between the two 

 species. As regards colour — which is not always a safe 

 test — there is most certainly a distinct difference, and I am 

 compelled to differ from both Messrs. Shuckard and Smith's 

 descriptions. They say of C. semiauratus, head, thorax, and 

 basal joints of the antennae bright metallic green, as also the 

 coxae and femora ; while of the abdomen, Smith says, the 

 apical margins of the third, fourth and fifth segments black. 

 Shuckhard says, the abdomen shining testaceous, with the 

 marginal half of the third segment black, and the fourth and 

 fifth of a steely-blue. From a large number of specimens 

 of C. semiauratus examined by myself, the head, thorax and 

 basal joint of the antennae, as well as the coxae and femora, are 



