370 



REPORT ON ZOOLOGY, MDCCCXLIV. 



<$ . G. inleyer (Thy mm), F., $ , in Sir J. Baiiks's collection. 7. binotatus, 

 Westw., , Van Dicmen's Land. 8. analis, Westw., 9, King George's 

 Sound. 9. ? Bethylas apterus, F. (does not belong to the genus). 10. ? 

 Myzine nificornis, Guer., from Arabia. 



Next to Rhagigaster comes in the new genus Eironej Westw., the $ like 

 Thynnoides, but wants the hook at the end of the abdomen, the <j> slender, 

 smooth, very like Rhagigaster, the upper jaws, as in that genus, with the 

 point two-toothed, the lip-palps of four joints, the jaw-pair with no more, 

 though they are not abbreviated, the claws simple, only a little enlarged at 

 the base. E. dlspar, new species, from Adelaide, $ black, 3,'", $ yellow, 

 2J'" in length. 



More nearly allied to Thynuus is the other new genus JEiiteles, established 

 for a female insect resembling a Thynnus of the same sex in all respects, 

 except that the palps are not the least abbreviated, the jaw-pair with six, the 

 lip-pair with four joints, and in this respect approaching the American species 

 of Thynnus. The only species known, E. bicolor, from King George's Sound. 



VESPAB.IJE. Curtis (Trans. Linn. Soc. xix. 256, pi. 31) has described 

 two Brazilian Polistes of the germs Myrffpefra,WhitG,M.brunnea wnAelegans, 

 along with the nest of the former. This appears as if it had been hung to 

 a branch of a tree, but is overspread with a fine reddish earth, not like such 

 nests as hang in the open air ; but this may have come from its being 

 packed in this sort of earth. The position of the entrance at the bottom of 

 the nest makes it very improbable that it was ever made underground. 



liatzeburg (Forstius 52, pi. 4. f. 7) has figured a new Odynerus, under 

 the name of Vespa ichneumonea, a male very like the small male of O. parie- 

 tum, but with three bands only on the abdomen, which is more thickly and 

 strongly punctured. It was bred out of one of the resinous galls of Tortrix 

 resinana, in which the grub, he says, doubtless had been living, in the man- 

 ner of the larvae of the Ichneumon-flies. This assumption seems to me very 

 questionable, and I think it more probable that the parent wasp had taken 

 advantage of the vacant cavity in the gall to lodge her egg in. 



FORMICARI^E. Mocquerys (Ann. Soc. Eut. Fr. ii, p. Ixvii), relates that 

 the savages in Brazil employ the (Ecodoma cephalotex for cicatrizing wounds. 

 For this purpose they let the ants seize the two edges of the wound between 

 their jaws, and then they pluck away the body. It is nothing uncommon, 

 he says, to see natives with scars of wounds closed up with seven or eight 

 ants' heads. 



[Motschoulski (Bull. Mosc. 813) remarks, that two species have been 

 commonly confounded under the name Formica rvfa ; the larger (the true 

 F. rufa, L.) inhabiting woods of the fir tribe, and constructing hillocks ; the 

 smaller (to which F. dormta, Pz. belongs) found also in woods of other 

 kinds, as well as in the open country, the steppes, and even in marshes, 

 making its nest underground.] 



