246 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1890. 



post a few of the nests of the insect. I do not think it is a social 

 wasp. Each nest seems to be the property of one pair only. It is a 

 low country insect. The nests were sent to me by a friend who was 

 then stationed near Gralle. The wasp I sent you was hatched out 

 of the cells of one of these nests. My friend (Mr. John Pole, a 

 very accurate observer, ) assures me, he has repeatedly seen this same 

 species and no other associated with these nests. The nests now 

 sent have been rather damaged, and have lost the perforated vesti- 

 bule which they have when complete. Mr. Pole writes of the wasps : 

 ' their habit seems to be to remain in the opening, using the lace- 

 work at the bottom as spyholes.' ' : 



The insects belonging to the genus Ischnogaster seem to be the 

 links joining the solitary and social tribes of the Wasps. They 

 resemble the solitary wasps in having the claws of their tarsi toothed 

 below, and in sometimes, as in the case of the species above described, 

 living in pairs, constructing a solitary nest. Again their affinity to 

 the social wasps is seen in the armature of the tibiae of the inter- 

 mediate and posterior legs, which, as in the true Vcspklo?., have two 

 spines each, and /. nigrifrons, Smith, which is common here in 

 Burma, does to my certain knowledge construct a social many-celled 

 nest, tier above tier, as the allied /. Mellyi is stated to do by de 

 Saussure. 



Tribe Anthophila, Lair. 



Family Andrenid.e, Leach. 



18. Ctenoplectra Chalybea, Smith. 



Ctenoplectra chahjbia, Smith, Proc. Linn. Soc. II. 45, 1, $. 



Habitat : Malacca ; Celebes ; Burma (Pegu Yoma) ; Tenasserim. 



Female : Length 4£ to 6 lines ; expanse 7 to 9 lines. 



Description : $ Head black, as broad as the thorax ; the clypeus 

 large, slightly convex and sparsely punctured, the face on each side 

 with a little silky white pubescence ; the vertex and cheeks finely 

 but densely punctured ; the antennas pitch black. Thorax black, 

 smooth and shining ; the scutellum rather coarsely punctured ; the 

 metathorax with sparse whitish pubescence fringing its sides ; 

 wings hyaline, the tegulae and nervures black ; legs black, 

 densely clothed, especially the posterior pair, with black pubescence 



