Insects. 



6611 



when these presented themselves, I exclaimed to myself, " Oh ! how 

 much do we learn from the perusal of a single chapter in Nature's 

 pages ! how completely are our most careful deductions set at nought, 

 and our most favourite theories scattered to the winds ! " but your 

 readers can only feel an interest in a knowledge of the results ; these 

 I will proceed to lay before them. 



It appears necessary, in the first place, to add a few words explana- 

 tory of the synonyms given in my last work on these insects ; that of 

 the first species will remain unchanged : the sexes I know to be cor- 

 rectly assimilated, having bred them from their cells, and also taken 

 them repeatedly in coitu. 



Of the P. annularis of Kirby two sexes are described in the ' Mono- 

 graphia ' of that author, and I have always considered them to be cor- 

 rectly united. I have carefully compared specimens with Kirby's 

 types, and have described them in my various papers. The disclosure 

 of the sexes of P. dilatatus from the nest, shows that the hitherto- 

 supposed sexes of P. annularis belong to different species, the female 

 being that sex of P. dilatatus, and the male being that of P. hyalinatus. 

 This discovery enables me to publish the correct synonyms of the 

 genus, having now bred four species, and the remainder offering very 

 distinct specific characters. The following list 1 believe to bo 

 correct : — 



1. Prosopis communis, Nyland. Revis. Ap. Boreal, p. 234. 

 Melitta annulata, Kirby, Mon. Ap. Angl. ii. 36, 3 (nec Linn). 



2. Prosopis dilatata, Nyland, Revis. Ap. Boreal, p. 234, <£. 

 Melitta dilatata, Kirby, Mon. Ap. Angl. ii. 39, 5, cT. 

 Melitta annularis, Kirby, Mon. Ap. Angl. ii. 38, 4, $ . 



3. Prosopis signata, Smith, Mon. Bees Great Brit. p. 12, 6, £. 

 Sphex signata, Panz. Faun. Germ. 53, 2. 



4. Prosopis cornuta, Smith, Mon. Bees Great Brit. p. 10, 4, 

 Prosopis plantaris, Smith, Zool. vi. 2205, 6, $ . 



5. Prosopis punctulatissima, Smith, Mon. Bees Great Brit. p. 1 1, 5, 



<?, ?. 



6. Prosopis hyalinata, Smith, Mon. Bees Great Brit. p. 13, 7, $ , $ . 

 Melitta annularis, Kirby, Mon. Ap. Angl. ii. 38, 4, $. 



7. Prosopis varipes, Smith, Mon. Bees Great Brit. p. 14, 8, $ , $. 



8. Prosopis variegata, Fabr. Syst. Piez. p. 259, 1, 2. 



I have given the neighbourhood of London as a locality for this 

 species, but this is an error into which I was led from having captured 



