74 



HYMENOPTERA 



Fig. 29. — Nest of Eumenes 

 coarciata : A, the nest 

 attached to -wood ; B, de- 

 tached, sliowing the Larva. 

 ((, the hirva ; b, the parti- 

 tion of the cell. (After caterpillars and one blacl 



Audre.) 



nests (Fig. 29) of this Insect are often attached to the twigs of 

 shrubs, while those of the two species previously mentioned are 



usually placed on objects that offer a 

 large surface for fixing the foundations 

 to, such as walls. According to Goureau 

 the larva of this species forms in one 

 corner of its little abode, separated by a 

 partition, a sort of dust-heap in which 

 it accumulates the various debris re- 

 sulting from the consumption of its 

 stores. 



Eumenes eonica, according to Home, 

 constructs in Hindostan clay-nests with 

 very delicate walls. This species pro- 

 visions its nest with ten or twelve green 

 caterpillars ; on one occasion this ob- 

 server took from one cell eight trreen 



It is much 

 attacked by parasites owing, it is 

 tliought, to the delicacy of the walls of the cells, which are 

 easily pierced : from one group of five cells two specimens only 

 of the Eamenes were reared. 



Odyncrus, with numerous sub-genera, the names of whicli 

 are often used as those of distinct o;enera, includes the larger 

 part of the solitary wasps ; it is very widely distributed over the 

 earth, and is represented by many peculiar species even in the 

 isolated Archipelago of Hawaii ; in Britain we have about fifteen 

 species of the genus. The Odynerus are less accomplished 

 architects than the species of Eumenes, and usually play the 

 more humble parts of adapters and repairers ; they live either in 

 holes in walls, or in posts or other woodwork, or in burrows in 

 the earth, or in stems of plants. Several species of the sub- 

 genus Hoploims liave the remarkable habit of constructing 

 burrows in sandy ground, and forming at their entry a curvate, 

 freely projecting tube placed at right angles to the main bur- 

 row, and formed of the grains of sand brought out by the 

 Insect during excavation and cemented together. The habits of 

 one such species were described by Eeaumur, of another by 

 Dufour ; and recently Fabre has added to the accounts of these 

 naturalists some important information drawn from liis own 



