Insects. 891 



The Saropodae are lovers of the hottest sunshiny weather : I do 

 not recollect ever meeting with them, except on such days in the 

 months of July, August, and September. The Saropoda bimaculata 

 is an especial favourite with me ; I delight to observe its rapid flight, 

 to listen to its shrill hum, and to watch it revelling amongst the 

 flowers of the purple heath ; it is a bustling, active little creature, 

 the very personification of life and joyousness : the female, whilst 

 excavating her burrow, appears to work in a perfect fever of excite- 

 ment, occasionally fluttering her wings, and producing a sound so 

 shrill, that I have more than once mistaken it for the squeak of a 

 field-mouse ; she appears unable to execute her task with the rapidity 

 she could wish. The situations she chooses are hard sand-banks, in 

 the neighbourhood of heath, to the flowers of which this species 

 appears to confine itself; I never observed it to settle on any other 

 flower : it is a gregarious insect, some colonies being very numerous. 



S. vulpina also burrows in sand-banks ; I captured one or two 

 issuing from them at Charlton, in Kent, but, as far as I have observed, 

 it is solitary. 



S. furcata has been recorded to be a wood burrower ; I was never 

 so fortunate as to discover its nidus, but some years ago, previous to 

 the old wooden outhouse in the market gardens at Battersea being 

 destroyed, I frequently met with the species frequenting the flowers 

 of the dead nettle. 



Genus. — Saropoda, Lat. 



Sp. 1. Saropoda bimaculata. 



Apis bimaculata, Panzer, Kirby. Anthophora bimaculata, St. Fargeau. 



Female, (length 4j lines). Black, finely punctured ; head, the cly- 

 peus pale yellow, a central attenuated line running upwards, and ano- 

 ther along the margin of the eyes, as high as the base of the antennae, 

 yellow, forming a tridentate mark ; the labrum pale yellow, a minute 

 black spot on each side at the base ; the mandibles yellow at their 

 base, their apex rufo-piceous ; the antennae rufo-piceous beneath; 

 the face, from the stemmata to the base of the antennae, and thence 

 along the margin of the eyes, leaving the clypeus naked, clothed with 

 reddish-yellow hair ; the pubescence on the sides of the thorax is of 

 the same colour, and dark brown on the vertex ; the legs are rufo- 

 piceous, clothed above with pale yellow hair ; at the apex of the 

 anterior and intermediate tibiae, and of the posterior femora, is a 

 patch of short rufous hair, the claws and calcaria rufo-piceous. The 



