224 CATALOGUE OP THE DESCRIBED HYMENOPTERA OF AUSTRALIA, 

 TRIDENTIFERA, Sill. l.C. p. 298. 



Moreton Bay, Q. 

 955 VARIABILIS, Sm. Brit. Mus. Cat. Hym. p. 325 (1856). 



Victoria ; N. S. Wales ; Pt. Essington, N.A. ; Swan River, 

 VV.A. 



VESPIFORMIS, Sm. l.C. p. 327. 

 Adelaide, S.A. 



Family MASARID^. 



This is a family containing several genera, the members of 

 which are handsome wasp-like insects, parasitic on other wasps, 

 constructing no nests themselves. Shuckard, when he formed the 

 Australian genus Faragia, named it " in allusion to its deceptive 

 habit, which is precisely that of a Vespa." Saussure wrote a 

 monograph on the tribe Masaridce, forming the third part of his 

 work on the Vespidce (Paris, 1856). Previously to this he had 

 written a paper on the family in the Annales de la Soc. Eat. 

 de France (1853). Shuckard described the first known Australian 

 species, Paragia decipiens, in the Transactions of the Entomological 

 Society of London (1837). It is a handsome black w^asp with a 

 green tint on head and thorax, and the abdomen of dirty ochre- 

 yellow colour ; this is our commonest species in N. S. Wales. 

 Smith, in the British Museum Catalogue of Hymenoptera, Part v. 

 (1857), and in the Trans. Ent. Society of London (1864-66-68-69), 

 described a number of others. 



162. PARAGIA. 

 Paragia, Shuck. Trans. Ent. Soc. 1837. 

 AUSTRALis, Sauss. Ann. Soc. Ent. France, I. (3), Bull. p. xxi. 

 (1853) ; Mon. Fam. Masar. p. 58, 6, t. 2, fig. 3, $ (1856). 

 Tasmania. 

 BicoLOR, Sauss. I.e. p. 21 ; Mon. Fam. Masar. p. 58, 6, t. 2, 

 fig. 3, $ (1856). 

 Australia. 

 BIDENS, Sauss. Mon. Fam. Masar. p. 59, 7, $ (1856). 

 Adelaide, S.A. 



