Xylocopa hottentotta. 
207 
wings subfuscous and with coppery iridescence, which in certain 
lights has purple tints. — Long. 8 lines (= 17 mm). 
Algeria. 
5. Xylocopa hottentotta Sm. 
1854. — Xylocopa Hottentotta Smith, 5 — Catal. Hymen. Brit. Mus. II. 
p. 349. 
1874. — Xylocopa Hottentotta Smith, d $' — Trans. Entom. Soc. London 
p. 256. 
1879. — Xylocopa Hottentotti Taschenberg, $ ? — Zeitschr. f. d. ges. 
Naturw. LII. p. 575. 
— Black, wings brownblack, with a bright steely-blue 
iridescence; head closely punctured; flagellum of the antennae 
nigropiceous beneath, more or less so in different examples. 
Thorax shining above, punctured, disk smooth, nearly impunc- 
tate, having only a few fine scattered punctures; metathorax 
rounded. Abdomen of the same width as the thorax, not very 
closely punctured, most sparingly so down the middle. — Long. 
8—9V 2 lines (= 17 —20 mm). 
cJ — very closely resembling the female, but with the 
antennae usually entirely nigropiceous beneath, in some of the 
larger examples very obscurely so; varying greatly in this 
respect; elypeus with silvery-white pubescence and the anterior 
margin of the thorax with similar pubescence more or less 
bright; in different examples there is sometimes a little white 
pubescence on each side of the basal margin of the abdomen, 
the 6.—7. segments are fringed with black pubescence on the 
apical Segment, forming lateral tufts. In some examples there is 
a little whitish pubescence on the sides of the thorax beneath 
the wings. — Long. 17—20 mm. 
This species is about the same size and is most closely 
allied to X. rufitarsis y but the 3 is at once distinguished by the 
colour of the hair that clothes the tarsi; the $ of rufitarsis has 
paler wings and they have a violet iridescence. 
A series of 10 together with 12 obligingly sent by 
S. S. Saunders, have enabled me to indicate the ränge of 
Variation in this species; they are from Aden. 
Sierra Leone, Angola, Natal, Aden.“ 
Mir liegen von X. hottentotta mehrere 3 £ von Aden (März 
1891; und von Jericho (Jordanthal) vom 14. April 1899 vor 
