1869. J 



277 



On the Ist of March I received from Mr. Nicholas Cooke, of Liscard, near 

 Birkenhead, a pair of bees, which he informed he could not find described in my 

 book on the Bees of Great Britain, and as this opinion was verified by his brother, 

 Mr. Benjamin Cooke, he felt satisfied they were likely to prove new. The bees 

 were forwarded to me, and I at once recognized them as an unrecorded British 

 species of the genus Colletes ; the Apis cunicularia of Linne, and the C. hirta of 

 most continental authors : it is a fine addition to our fauna, being the largest spe- 

 cies found in Europe. 



Without an account of its capture, it would appear strange that so conspicuous 

 an insect should not have been previously discovered. Mr. Cooke informs me that 

 in 1867, his son Isaac (accompanied by his friend Mr. Samuel Holdsworth, Jun., a 

 Lepidopterist,) was on an entomological excursion at the Underclifi", Isle of Wight, 

 and that between Yentnor and Niton, in the month of May, his son captured four 

 males and five females ; this is an early period of the season, when entomologists 

 rarely visit distant localities — I allude to those who make annual excursions for 

 fresh air and exercise ; this is usually done about the end of summer or during the 

 autumn. This fact will, in some degree, account for the Colletes having remained 

 previously undiscovered. All the species of the genus delight in forming colonies 

 in sandy banks, or olio's j therefore, the chance of others finding the new bee is 

 rendered more probable than if it belonged to a group of the more solitary species 

 of the family. I hope myself to have at least the pleasure of searching for it 

 during the coming season. — Frederick Smith, British Museum, March, 1869. 



Two additions to the British Trichojptera. — I have recently received the two 

 species noticed below. 



1. Halesus auricollis, 'Tictet (Phry. auricollis, Pict., Recherch., p. 141, t. 8, fig. 1 ; 

 Hal, nigricornis, Brauer, Neurop. Aust., p. 47, nec. Pictet), belonging to the true 

 genus HalesuSy as restricted by me {i.e. posterior wings of S without a pouch). A 

 moderately large dark insect, with shining smoky-grey anterior wings, with darker 

 pterostigma, and with a large and conspicuous white spot at the thyridium, and 

 indistinct paler irrorations. Taken in some numbers at Rannoch, Perthshire, by 

 Dr. Buchanan White, to whose kindness I am indebted for a fine series. A detailed 

 description is postponed for my proposed first supplement to the "Trichoptera 

 Britannica." I have carefully compared it with Pictet's type in the Biitish Museum, 

 and with Brauer's types in my own collection, and consider it to agree sufiSciently 

 well, though there are some very slight discrepancies. The suspicion expressed by 

 me in the " Annual " for 1868, p. 4, that my guttatipennis might be identical with 

 Pictet's species, is unfounded. That species is thoroughly distinct, and my exponent 

 of it still unique as British, though I have since seen Swiss examples. 



2. Tinodes Schmidtii, Kolenati, (Potamaria Sch^nidtii, Kol., Gen. et spec. Trichop., 

 pt. 1, p. 100, pt. 2, p. 229 ; Diplectrona Schmidtii, Brauer, Neurop. Aust., p. 38). 

 A small insect belonging to the group of T. piisilla, diff'ering totally from our re- 

 corded species by its dark coloration ; the wings being smoky -black with a more or 

 less distinct half-moon-shaped golden spot in the apical half, formed by haii's of 

 that colour. Notwithstanding its diversity in colour from most other species of the 

 genus, it is a true Tinodes, as the appendices alone would prove, these being all 



