GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
The names of insects are not always very aptly given, for the only available derivation of this appears to be from ἔπιον, wool; in allusion to the clothing of its venter; but, if so, it should be spelt without the H, for the first letter is without an aspiration. The habits of these closely resemble those of the preceding genus, to which they have a great personal likeness, and therefore their natural history would be but its reiteration. Our solitary species is a rare insect, but I expect western England would produce it. It is like those of the preceding genus, of a uniform black colour, punctured, but it approximates more closely than they do to the type of form exhibited in the genus Osmia. They visit the same flowers as the preceding genus.
Genus 23. Anthocopa, St. Fargeau.
([Plate XIV.] fig. 2 ♂♀.)
Gen. Char.: Body glabrous, subpubescent, shining. Head subglobose, as wide as the thorax; ocelli placed in a slight curve on the summit of the vertex; antennæ short, geniculated, the flagellum subclavate seen in front, but seen from above, owing to the compression of the terminal joint, subfusiform, the first joint of the flagellum globose, rather robust, the second short, subclavate and subequal with the rest, which increase gradually in length and substance to the terminal one, which is the longest, and laterally compressed; face flattish; clypeus subquadrate, very convex and very pubescent; “labrum oblong, quadrate; mandibles strong, tridentate; labium (tongue) long, filiform; labial palpi having the third joint articulated externally on the outer side of the second; maxillary palpi four-jointed.” Thorax globose; scutellum lunate; post-scutellum transverse, linear; metathorax rounded; wings with two submarginal cells and the commencement of a third just indicated, the second very slightly larger than the first, and receiving both the recurrent nervures, the first just beyond its commencement and the second close to its termination; legs short, rather robust, subsetose; the posterior tibiæ externally convex and the posterior plantæ with a dense, short brush beneath; the claws simple. Abdomen cylindrical, retuse at the base, convex above, declining from the base of the fourth segment to the extremity, the first and second segments very slightly constricted, the margin of the posterior one, at the apex, slightly crenulated, the ventral segments plane and from the second covered with a dense brush of parallel hair, excepting the sixth, which is reflected laterally and longitudinally, convex down the centre.
The MALE differs in having “the sixth segment of the abdomen emarginate, and with a strong tooth on each side; the terminal segment emarginate, thus producing two strong, lateral, obtuse teeth, the ventral plates of these same segments emarginate at the extremity, and the emargination fringed with hair; the claws bifid.”
NATIVE SPECIES.
1. papaveris, Latreille. ([Plate XIV.] fig. 2 ♂♀.)
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.