86 Records of the Indian Museum. [Vol,. XXIV, 



Java, Formosa and the Malay Peninsula. Some confusion has 

 existed as to the sexes of the species described by Smith and 

 Bingham as pictifrons, but this has been admirably cleared up by 

 Maidl in his paper. He regards the male described by Smith as 

 typical pictifrons, while Bingham's male and Smith's female are a 

 separate species for which he has adopted the name attenuata of 

 Perez. 



Xylocopa auripennis Lepel. 



In addition to the localities noticed by Bingham, the Indian 

 Museum also possesses specimens from the Darjiling District, the 

 Naga Hills and Sibsagar in Assam, South India and Nepal. The 

 species is supposed to be mimicked by a Sphingid moth (Sataspes 

 hauxwelli), which according to De Niceville (Journ. Bomb. Nat. Hist. 

 Soc. XIII, p. 174) was "a beautiful mimic of the very common large 

 blue carpenter-bee Xylocopa auripennis, Lepeletier." The wings 

 of the moth are a deep indigo-blue with bronze markings, which 

 scarcely resembles the wings of the bee, and in the cabinet the 

 whole insect seems entirely different. 



De Niceville does not say that the bee and the moth were taken 

 together, and in the absence of definite field-observations, the moth 

 has little claims to being a mimic of the Xylocopa. 



Xylocopa dissimilis Lepel. 



The Museum has specimens from Bangalore, Bandra in the 

 Bombay Presidency, Mong-Wan in Yunnan (W. China) and South- 

 ern China. 



Xylocopa fenestrata Fabr. 



V Xylocopa bombayensis, Cam. ? M. S. 

 1921. Xylocopa fenestrata, Dover, Rec. Ind. Afus. XXII, p. 390. 



In the paper cited, I have noticed what appears to be an aber- 

 ration of X. fenestrata from Barkuda Island in the Chilka Lake, 

 with a comparatively large, and a small, almost reniform, hyaline 

 marking on each of the hindwings. The Indian Museum possesses 

 another specimen from Hamirpur Road in the United Provinces 

 (Caunter,x' 1 1 ) , which has the lower halves of the wings semi-hyaline. 

 The fact that King described an example with semi-lunate, hyaline 

 markings on the hindwings under the name lunata, makes me now 

 think that aberrations of this species, with hyaline markings of 

 some sort on the wings are perhaps not uncommon. It might be 

 of interest to note here that I remember to have seen a specimen 

 of the closely allied African X. carinata with an irregular hyaline 

 patch on the right forewing. Can it be that these markings are 

 caused by injuries sustained in the early stages ? X. fenestrata is a 

 common Indian species, extending as far Celebes on the south-east 

 and probably into Australia, and Madagascar on the south-west. 

 It does not penetrate into South Africa, but is replaced there by 



