116 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVI. 



The Order Hymenoptera includes the wood-wasps, saw-flies and gall 

 flies, the numerous tribes of the ichneumon flies and 

 chalcid flies, and the ants, bees, and wasps. It is a large 

 Order, in which a very large number of species remain 

 to be discovered and described, and this is especially the 

 case in India. 



In the adult Insect the head is short and broad and 

 deeply constricted off from the prothorax and never sunk 

 into it ; sometimes it is attached to this latter by a stalk- 

 like process. The mandibles are powerful biting organs, 

 and the proboscis is at times of some length, it being used 

 for sucking up sweet liquids into the mouth (fig. 33, c) 

 The prothorax is but feebly developed, the dorsal portion 



being separated from the ventral half, the former being 

 Fig. 34.— Divided , , , i , , , 



trochanter of firmly fused to the mesothorax, whilst the lower portion 



an Ichneumon: (with the first pair 

 «, coxa ; &, di- of j ^ j s mova blo. 



vided- trochan- , _ n 



, „. Meso- and meta- 

 fcerj; cy, femur 



(after Sharp), thorax are usually 

 immovably united, but in the saw- 

 flies and wood-wasps they are 

 freely movable. The legs have 

 large cox.se, and the trochanter is 

 often divided into two joints (in the 

 Tenthredinidce, Uroceridce, Cyni- 

 pidce and Tchneumonida) as seen 

 in fig. 34 which shows the divided 

 trochanter of an ichneumon ; the 

 tarsus is five-jointed, the first joint 



being longer than the following fig. 35.— Wings of Xylocopa. A, the pair of 



wings separated ; as, the position 

 of the hooks. B, the same wings 

 when united by the hooks. C, 

 portions of the two wings : a, 

 the series of hooks ; b, marginal 

 hairs ; <?, portion of edge of 

 front wing, of which the other 

 part has been broken away in 

 order to show the hoots. 



one. The upper and lower wings 

 are connected by a row of small 

 hooks, attached to the upper edge 

 of the lower wing, which catch 

 on to the stout- curved edge of 

 the front wing, the two wings 

 on one side thus acting as one 

 piece. Fig. 35 shows the wings of a carpenter-bee (Xylocopa} and 



