216 [September, 1906. 



NIDIFICATION OF ODYNERUS RUNIFORMIS, Gmel., 

 NEAE CHOBHAM. 



BY THE REV. F D. MORICE, M.A., F.E S. 



The first recorded British specimen of Odyiiprus reniformis^ Gmel , 

 was taken by Mr. E. Saunders on Chobhara Common as long ago as 

 1876. Occ' sional captures by the late Mr. Beaumont, myself, and 

 others, in the same district indicate that the species has maintained 

 itself there continuously, if in no great numbers, ever since. But I 

 believe there is still only one record of the discovery of its burrows 

 in England. These were seen for the first and last time by Mr. 

 Saunders "on a level sandy spot on Chobham Common " in July, 1887, 

 and described soon after in a note sent by him to the Ent. Mo. Mag. 

 of that year. They were excavated in the sand, and surmounted by 

 " curved tubular entrances " of the same material, like those of 0. 

 spinipes, L. 



The exact spot has often been visited since by Mr. Saunders and 

 myself, and the wasps have now and again been observed there, but 

 not their burrows. On July 8th of last year, how^ever, I was invited 

 to enter a neighbouring enclosure, w^here the occupant (not a natu- 

 ralist) had been struck by the appearance of some wasp-like insect 

 in great numbers. I went there accordingly, and was agreeably sur- 

 prised to find quite a strong colony of O. reniformis established, not, 

 as before, in the level sand, but in two of the walls — those facing 

 respectively S. and W. — of an old and now partly dismantled and 

 ruinous cottage. 



It was a one-storied building with a thatched roof. The east wall 

 had been broken through, but not entirely removed, and the gap in it 

 was partly choked with broken bricks and other rubbish. On the 

 north side was a more modern red-brick addition to the original 

 building — a very low " lean-to," with a separate tiled roof. The w^est 

 and south walls — those utilized by the reniformis — were ver}^ thick, 

 formed of some hard sandy substance, in which I could not distinguish 

 any definite bricks or blocks, but which changed its appearance slightly 

 (becoming distinctly lighter in colour) from about a foot above the 

 ground upwards all round. Both walls had evidently once been coated 

 externally with a layer of smoother plaster of a whitish colour; but 

 of this only small patches here and there remained, so that the actual 

 walls were left with a coarsely corrugated brownish or yellowish 

 surface as of a natural cliff of sandstone. About these walls the 

 Odyneri kept coming and going, and by degrees T became aware of 



