BY WALTER W. FROGGATT. 211 



830 SiEVUS, Sm. Brit. Mus. Cat. Hym. p. 265 (1856); Sauss. Reise 

 Novara, Hym. p. 42. 

 Swan River, W.A. 



135. APHELOTOMA. 



Aphelotoma, Westwood, Trans. Ent. Soc. (1) III. (1841). 

 TASMANICA, Westw. Trans. Ent. Soc. III. p. 226, pi. xii. fig. 



4, 2 ; Arch. Ent. II. p. 65, pi. lxv. fig. 3, ^ ; Sm. Brit. 



Mus. Cat. Hym. p, 273, pi. vii. fig. 4 (1856). 

 Tasmania. 



Family POMPILIID^. 



Some of the tropical species of this family are the largest and 

 most ferocious of known wasps ; they belong to the genus Fepsis, 

 and are black with beautiful metallic lustre on the wings. 

 Saussure has described one species of this genus from Australia. 



Most of our species belong to the genus Fompihcs ; these have 

 long legs armed with large spurs, and run very rapidly over the 

 ground, constantly agitating their wings as they go ; several of 

 our larger species have bright yellow wings ti[)ped with black. 



From their large size and handsome appearance they were 

 among some of the first of our Hymenoptera described l)y Fabricius 

 from specimens in the Banksian Museum. In the British 

 Museum Catalogue of Hymenoptera, Part iii. (1855), Smith 

 catalogued these, and others previously described; and lie described 

 a number of others in the British Museum. Mr. Smith has since 

 described many new species in the Transactions of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of London, 1862, 1864, 1868, 1869 ; in the Annals 

 and Magazine of Natural History for 1873 ; in Brenchley's 

 " Cruise of the Curacoa," and in " New Species of Hymenoptera " 

 (1879), a British Museum publication published after his death 

 in the early part of the year. Saussure, in the " Reise Novara, 

 Hymenoptera," also described a number of this group, and more 

 recently, Kohl, in several papers on this family published in the 

 Verhandlungen z.-b. Gesellschaft in Wien (1886) has greatly 

 enriched our list. 



