ZOOLOGY. 
CCXVll 
prove this specimen to be a male, but the posterior tibiae are without hairs 
upon their surface, and are fringed with long ones, forming what Reaumur 
calls the Corbeille, (Corbicula, Kirby,) usually peculiar to the females, in which 
they carry the masses of pollen-paste, which is the reverse of what is observed 
in other male humble bees. 
“ The insect before us differs so slightly from the description which 
O. Fabricius has given of that which he mistook ^ov the Apis alpina of Linne, that 
there can be little or no doubt of their identity. He confesses that his speci- 
mens (and this bee appears to have abounded in West Greenland, as it was 
also observed to do in Melville Island, and wherever the Expedition landed 
within the Arctic Circle) did not in all things agree with the characters assigned 
to that species. But he states, that as Linnfe had seen only a single specimen, 
he did not think himself at liberty to make a new species on account of an insig- 
nificant difference. Although, however, Linn6 had seen this bee only once, it 
has since been more frequently taken, and having received specimens of it 
from Sweden, through the kindness of Major Gyllenhal, which agree with the 
Linnean description in every point but size, (a circumstance easily explained 
by supposing the original specimen a queen, and those sent to me neuters,) 
can venture to assert that the two insects are perfectly distinct. Bombus alpi- 
ms is entirely black, with the upper side of the abdomen, all but the base 
covered with orange-coloured or ferruginous hairs. The antennae, also of the 
female or neuter (an important distinction in a genus, the species of which are 
usually only distinguished by the colour of their hirsuties) are proportionally 
shorter, and the short hairs that cover the tarsi are black. 
“ Scarcely any genus of the insect creation has so large a range as this of 
Bombus. It is found in the old world and in the new, and from the limits of 
phaenogamous vegetation to the equator, but its metropolis appears to be within 
the temperate zone. The range of the species in question seems limited by 
the Arctic Circle, and to go from Greenland only westward, for it does not ap- 
pear to have been seen in Lapland or Iceland (’*), or other eastern parts of that 
circle. 
(“) ttookQx's B.ecollections of Iceland. 1st Edit. 34. 
