32 The Field Naturalist 's Quarterly Feb. 



taking no less than three different species of spiders — viz., 

 Lycosa terricola, Drassus silvestris, and Drassus troglodytes — 

 all immature, and therefore the identification of the species 

 is perhaps doubtful though kindly given by a high authority: 

 that there were three distinct species is however certain, 

 and these I took from one and the same insect in the course 

 of one morning as she was each time on the point of taking 

 them into her burrow. 



Let us pass on to consider some few of the Sphegidse or 

 Sand-Wasps. In these, too, we find the same habit of stor- 

 ing animal food for the sustenance of the next generation, 

 but there is a greater diversity in menu, beetles, caterpillars, 

 aphides, two-winged flies, Hymenoptera,even other Sphegidae, 

 falling victims in addition to spiders. In colouration also 

 there is a wider range than in the first division, some being 

 black, some black and white, some black and red, and some 

 black and yellow. The burrows, too, are not invariably made 

 in the ground, some species habitually boring in decaying 

 posts, stumps, bramble-stems, &c. My first introduction 

 to members of this division occurred in this way. I had 

 bicycled over to Petersfield with a friend to inspect the 

 parish church, and we were peacefully reclining on a grassy 

 slope in the churchyard when a wasp-like insect carrying 

 something in its jaws came repeatedly and with evident 

 purpose at me. At length it actually settled on my leg, and 

 I perceived that it was carrying a fly : I at once concluded 

 that I was obstructing its burrow with my body, so carefully 

 got up, and having moved aside a short distance, soon had 

 the satisfaction of seeing my insect, which proved to be 

 Mellinus arvensis, carry a fly into the burrow over which I 

 had been lying. Numbers of burrows were soon found along 

 the bank, and we blessed the energetic Mellini for the work 

 they were doing in ridding us of the all too pertinacious flies. 



The genus Crabro is of all the Sphegidae by far the richest 

 in species — no less than thirty being found in Britain. A 

 Crabro may be easily identified as such by the paucity of 

 "cells" in the anterior wing, there being but one sub- 

 marginal cell. Only two other genera possess this character 

 — namely, Oxybehis and Entomognathus ; but an Oxybelus 

 possesses a curved spine on the basal part of the dorsal 



