OUR HYMENOPTER.V. 35 



measures adopted against mortals or against insect parasites ? It is 

 a curious fact that nests built on glass are always streaked with 

 white, hence glass is apparently white to the eyes of Ewmenes. I 

 have said that Eumenes is much parasited. Here is a by no means 

 abnormal instance. I took a nest of eleven cells. Three cells yielded 

 each, a beetle, three yielded each a chrysis, two yielded each, a swarm 

 of flies and three only yielded Eumenes. The beetle I mentioned 

 above has been identified for me by the authorities of the Indian 

 Museum at Calcutta as belono-mo- to the Mordellidce and as allied 

 to a European species which is a parasite on one of the European 

 Diploptera. Whence this race antagonism ? Another genus of 

 EumenidcB is Mhynchinm, of which a brown species is very 

 common about our rooms and makes mud cells, not building like 

 Jiumenes, but adapting holes and crevices of wood work, &c. A 

 black species, Nilididum, frequents cur verandahs and builds 

 her nest like Eumenes. The cells remind one of the old nursery 

 pictures of Ali Baba's oil jars, and are built in clusters of 20 or 30 or 

 jnore, the material is mud, and the whole is covered with a dark- 

 coloured sticky varnish, possibly intended to keep off parasites. If 

 so it is a failure. The Social Wasps, or Vesjndce, are represented 

 chiefly by three genera, viz., Icaria, Polities and Vespa. Icaria best 

 represents what we naturally picture to ourselves as a" wasp," except 

 that they have not the striped look of our English vespa. There are a 

 •good many species which all build ' brown paper" nests. Usually 

 these are of small sizes and are supported on a stalk, but one species 

 arranges the cells so as to form a long tapering nest a foot and more 

 -in length. The principal representatives of Polistes is MehraiXs, 

 which is not unlike our English hornet in shape, and is pale yellow 

 with black stripes. Hebrceus lives in immense communities, and 

 when in possession of a bungalow rapidly becomes a nuisance. Of 

 .Vespa we have two forms, viz., the common, Vespa cinta, and Yespa 

 indica, who gradually takes his place as we move north to the 

 Punjab. Cincta is the big dark brown wasp with a bread yellow 

 band, which may be seen in numbers about sweetmeat-sellers' shops. 

 Cincta is said to loot the pupas from the nest of other Vesvidce, but 

 I confess in my mind he is always connected with a tray of " dudh- 

 pendis," "jelebis,," &c, in the hands of a very dirty retail sweetmeat- 

 seller. Among tho Vespidce as with the ants there are three orders 

 or estates, the queens, the males and the workers, but among 

 the Vespidcc all classes arc winged. 



