88 Records of the Indian Museum. [Voi,. XXIV, 



Museum. The U.S. National Museum has specimens of X niti- 

 diventris from Kukier, Eastern Turkestan. 



Subfamily BOMBINAE. 1 

 Bombus montivagus Smith. 



The Indian Museum has examples from Upper Tenasserim 

 and Take-pum Mt. on the Chinese Frontier in N E. Burma. 



A form has also been taken in Onari in British Garwhal, 

 11,000 ft., which has the colour of the pubescence on the apical 

 three segments of the abdomen almost snow-white and not fulvous 

 red. 



Bombus lapidarius var. tunicatus Smith. 



1897. Bombus tunicatus, Bingham, Faun. Brit. hid. Hym. I, p. 5 j.9. 

 1910. Bombus tunicatus, Cockerell, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. V, p. 417- 

 1916. Bombus lapidarius var. tunicatus, Meade-Waldo, Ann. Mag. 

 Nat. Hist. XVII, p. 467. 



Following Meade- Waldo 1 consider tunicatus and Cockerell' 3 

 gilgitensis to be varieties of the European B. lapidarius Iyinn. The 

 Museum possesses specimens of the former variety from Garwhal, 

 Simla Hills, Mussoorie, Nepal, and two examples from Calcutta. 

 In Nature for May 19th, 1921, I recorded the capture of the two 

 Calcutta examples and mentioned having seen what was probably 

 a species of Bombus at the base of the Eastern Himalayas, as 

 "bumble bees" are supposed never to descend below 3,000 ft. 

 Burkill (fourn. As. Soc. Beng. (n. s.) II, p. 521, 1906) found 

 B. haemorrhoidalis common in the N.W. Himalayas at 1,600 ft., 

 but the capture of Bombus actually in the plains is astonishing, 

 and it is probable that such an incident may never occur again, 

 though I originally mentioned that these bees probably occur, very 

 rarely, in the plains. There is an old record of B. orienialis in 

 Calcutta which I think must be authentic; but as to how these 

 strictly hill-species have been found here I can offer no explanation 

 other than that these species of Bombus probably nest in the ground 

 and have been conveyed here through the agency of man. 



A fly, Criorhina imitator rf the family Syrphidae, closely 

 resembles this species and the case appears to be one of real 

 mimicry. Brunetti in his original description (Rec. Ind. Mus. XI, 

 p. 237, 1915) stated that it was a mimic of the bee Bombus trifas- 

 ciatus (as understood by Bingham), but I think it will be admitted 

 that it resembles tunicatus more closely in the light pubescence on 

 the anterior parts of the thorax, on the scutellum, on the basal 

 abdominal segments, and in the colour of its wings and legs. The 

 pubescence on the apical abdominal segments is also reddish, but 

 unfortunately, it is not quite so dense as in the bee it resembles. 

 Hingston in A Naturalist in Himalaya (Witherby : 1920, p. 184) 

 notices the resemblance of Bombylius to Bombus and of a species 



1 As the use of the term BremusSor Bombus is dependent on the validity of 

 the " Erlangen " list, and this is still a debatable point [ have preferred to use 

 the more generally known name. 



