1903.] 231 



the specimens first captured in Scotland and near Wakefield in Yorkshire were 

 believed to build nests in fir trees. Subsequently the species was found verj 

 sparingly in other English localities — Gloucestershire and Cheshire (Ormerod, '68; 

 Saunders, '96a), in North Wales (Gardner, '94 ; Nevinson, '00) ; in the Clyde and 

 Forth districts of Scotland (Cameron, '75 ; Evans, '00 ; Malloch, '00, 01) ; and its 

 identity with the continental species known as T. austriaca. Panzer, was recognised 

 (Andre, '84). Though both male and queen of the species are known to continental 

 entomologists, workers certainly referable to it have never been found. Smith, 

 however, took, in company with the original queen-types of his V. arhorea, a 

 peculiar worker-wasp, which he was disposed to refer to the same species. Smith 

 must have taken males also between 1858 and 1868, since both that sex and the 

 supposed worker are figured, from specimens supplied by him, in Ormerod's work, 

 published in the latter year. Then for many years the male of Vespa austriaca 

 was overlooked in Great Britain until the Kev. O. Pickard Cambridge obtained a 

 single specimen in Dorset (Saunders, '96b). Males have since been obtained by 

 Nevinson ('00) in Carnarvonshire, and by Evans ('00) in the Edinburgh district. 

 So far as we know the species has in Great Britain a distinctly western and northern 

 range. Saunders has called attention ('02b) to the difference in the relative fre- 

 quency of the species of wasps in southern and midland England as compared with 

 Ireland. In Berks and Northamptonshire Vespa germanica—\virge\j outnumbered 

 in Ireland by V. vulgaris — ^is represented by 68 per cent, of the spring-caught 

 queens ; while T. austriaca is unknown. On the continent, also, V. austriaca 

 haunts mountainous and northern regions. Sweden, Switzerland, the Vosges, the 

 Rhine Valley, Southern Germany, and Western Austria are the districts it inhabits 

 (Thomson, '74 ; Andre, '84). 



Vespa austriaca was first noticed in Ireland by one of us (Carpenter, '93), who 

 found several specimens among a number of queen-wasps received from Bray, Co. 

 Wicklow. Subsequently its appearance in varying numbers in the same locality 

 was traced through several years by Barrington and MofPat ('01). Freke ('96) 

 mentioned that it was " not very uncommon in the Dublin district," while Buckle 

 ('99) found in Cos. Derry and Donegal several queens and a single male— the first 

 of the sex recorded from Ireland. In the same year one of us (Pack-Beresford, '99) 

 extended the known range of the wasp into Down and Carlow, while two years later 

 ('01) he captured 128 specimens of the male in the latter county ; in 1902 again, 

 over 100 males were taken in the same district. A single queen of V. austriaca 

 was found by Col. Yerbury in the far west of Xerry (Saunders, '02a). 



Much difference of opinion has prevailed among naturalists as to the exact 

 nature of Vespa austriaca. Smith, as we have seen, regarded it as an ordinary 

 social wasp, nesting in trees, like V. sylvestris and V. norvegica, and possessing the 

 usual forms of male, queen, and worker. In his British Museum Catalogue ('58) 

 he implies that the insects were actually observed by him building nests in fir trees, 

 and it might be wondered why this seemingly definite statement by a careful 

 naturalist should have been neglected or discredited by later writers. But reference 

 to his earliest paper on the subject ('43) shows that the only fact in support of the 

 statement was the presence of nests on trees in the wood where Vespa arhorea 

 occurred. No evidence is given to connect the insects captured with these nests. 



All students of V. austriaca have been struck by its similarity to V. rufa, and 



