252 BRITISH BEES. 



Kirbii, Stephens. 



§§ With suhclavate antenna. 



18. Jacobe<B, Panzer, c? ? ■ 4-4^ lines. (Plate X. 



fig. 1 c? ? •) 

 JacobecB, Kirby. 

 flavopida, Kirby. 



19. Solidaginis, Panzer, S ? . 3|-4 lines. (Plate X. 



fig. 3 c??.) 

 picta, Kirby. 

 rufopicta, Kirby. 



20. Roberjeotiana, Panzer, c? ? . 3 lines. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



This genus was named by Fabricius from the Nomades, 

 a pastoral Scythian tribe, in allusion to the assumed 

 wandering habits of the insects, and it is the fact indeed 

 that they are usually found leisurely hovering about 

 hedgerows, or the banks enclosing fields, or about the 

 metropolis or nidus of any bee upon which they are 

 parasitical. They are the gayest of all our bees, their 

 colours being red or yellow intermixed with black, in 

 bands or spots; they are also very elegant in form, 

 which is after the type of that of the most normal An- 

 dreniddB, and to which they have a further affinity by 

 the silence of their flight, and by their parasitism upon 

 many of the species of that subfamily. From their 

 very general resemblance to wasps in colour they are 

 often mistaken for wasps, and are popularly called wasp- 

 bees, although they have none of the virulence of that 

 vindictive tribe, for although all the females are armed 

 with stings, they are not prompt in their use, or if 

 roused to defence the puncture is but slight. In addi- 



