214 BRITISH BEES. 



Section 2. With entire par aglossa. 



Subsection c. XimavM actjt^ (acute tongues). 



a. With three submarginal cells to the wings. 



Genus 6. Halictus, Latreille. 



(Plate IV.) 



Melitta ** I, Kirby. 



Gen. Char. ; Head transverse, flattish, scarcely so 

 wide as the thorax ; ocelli in an open triangle on the 

 vertex, which is flat ; antennce short, filiform, genicu- 

 lated, scape quite or more than half as long as the fla- 

 gellum ; face flat, excepting in the centre just below the 

 insertion of the antennae, where it is protuberant ; clypeus 

 transversely lunulate, very convex; labrum subquadrate, 

 very convex, with a central, linear, carinated appendage 

 iu front, nearly as long as the basal portion ; cibarial 

 apparatus moderate; tongue very acute and delicately 

 fringed with short hair; paraglossce acute, about half 

 the length of the tongue ; labial palpi not quite so long 

 as the paraglossse, the basal joint very long, the rest 

 decreasing gradually in length ; labium about as long 

 as the tongue, its inosculation emarginate; maxillce 

 subhastate, rather longer than the tongue ; maxillary 

 palpi filiform, the basal joint the shortest, second the 

 longest, the rest decreasing in length. Thorax oval, 

 usually pubescent, sometimes glabrous; prothorax in- 

 conspicuous, as are the bosses of the mesothorax ; scutel- 

 lum and post-scutellnm lunulate, the former convex ; 

 metaihorax gibbous or truncated, but laterally pubescent 

 even in the glabrous species ; wings with three submar- 

 ginal cells, and a fourth sometimes commenced, the se- 

 cond subquadrate and receiving the first recurrent nervure 

 close to its extremity, the second being received beyond 



