I have no doubt, also, that they are very musical in their flight and are, perhaps, as shrill-winged as is Saropoda; whereas one of the great characteristic specialities of the Andrenidæ is their silence. This genus, although restrained within the circuit of the subnormal bees by the structure and folding of its tongue, has so much of the habit of one of the true Apidæ that it almost prompts the wish to resuscitate the circular systems and place it within its own circle in analogical juxtaposition to Saropoda in the circle of the Apidæ, where they might impinge one upon the other. It is not often that so rare an insect is at the same time so curious and so suggestive. Having been found, there is no reason why it may not be again found with due and patient diligence; my own experience has taught me how easy it is even in well-hunted ground to make rarities common, within almost a stone’s throw of the metropolis, at Hampstead, Highgate, and Battersea, from which localities in the course of my entomological career I have introduced to our fauna many novelties, one of which was certainly a remarkable discovery, from the last spot named, which it is worth recording. A quantity of soil had been removed from the City where an artesian well was being bored, and consequently from varying depths, and carted thence and cast upon the edge of the river-bank at Battersea. The following season, from this soil, a thick and prodigious quantity of the common mustard plant shot up, and when in flower I happened to be collecting near the spot on the day of our gracious Queen’s coronation, when I captured multitudes of a splendid large Allantus, entirely new to the British fauna, and a choice addition to collections. This ground had been hunted at all seasons through all botanical and entomological time, and neither had the mustard plant been found there before nor had the insect. Whence did they both come? These observations have certainly nothing to do with the subject in hand, beyond suggesting that with untiring energy in the vicinities indicated where Macropis has been already found it may possibly turn up in abundance.
Genus 8. Dasypoda, Latreille.
Melitta ** c, partly, Kirby.
([Plate V.] fig. 3 ♂ ♀.)
Gen. Char.: Head transverse; vertex glabrous; ocelli placed in a curved line; antennæ short, filiform, geniculated, the scape thickly bearded with long hair and scarcely half the length of the flagellum; face and clypeus densely pubescent, the latter slightly convex; labrum transverse, linear, slightly rounded in front; mandibles arcuate, bidentate, the teeth acute and robust; cibarial apparatus moderately long; tongue long, very acute, and fringed with delicate hair; paraglossæ about one-third the length of the tongue, very slender, and acute; the labial palpi inserted upon the junction of the labium, very slender, filiform, of uniform thickness, the joints subclavate, the basal joint considerably the longest, the second joint also long, the two terminal joints much shorter and decreasing in length; labium about the length of the tongue, its inosculation acutely triangular; maxillæ hastate, as long as the tongue; maxillary palpi six-jointed, rather more than half the length of the maxillæ, slender, the basal joint the most robust, the second the longest, the rest declining both in thickness and length. Thorax oval, densely pubescent, the divisions indistinct from its density; scutellum lunulate; metathorax subtruncate; wings with two submarginal cells and a third commenced, the second receiving both the recurrent nervures, the first close to its commencement and the second just beyond its centre; legs slender, pubescent, especially the tibiæ and plantæ, the hair upon the posterior pair being extremely dense and long, and each hair twisted minutely spirally; their coxæ, trochanters, and femora also covered with long hair; claws bifid, the inner tooth very short. Abdomen oval, the basal and fifth segments densely hairy, the superior surface glabrous and shining, excepting where the white decumbent bands broadly edge the three intermediate segments.
The MALE differs in being more densely pubescent, especially upon the abdomen, which is not glabrous, and in not having the antennæ geniculated; the bands of the abdomen are fulvous, and its legs are longer and more slender, and it is sexually less hairy, although still considerably so.
NATIVE SPECIES.
1. hirtipes, Fab., ♂ ♀. 6-7 lines. ([Plate V.] fig. 3 ♂ ♀.)
Swammerdamella, Kirby.