114 HYMENOPTERA. 



swimming in the adult state on the surface of pools, and they 

 are the low, minute, degraded Proctotrupids, Prestwicliia 

 natans and Poh/nema natans described by Mr. Lubbock. The 

 Hymenoptera do not imitate or mimic the forms of other in- 

 sects, but, on the contrary, their forms are extensively copied in 

 the Lepidoptera, and especiall}'^ the Diptera. A partial excep- 

 tion to this law is seen in the antennae of the Australian genus 

 T/iaumatosoma, where they are long and slender, and knobbed 

 as in the butterfly, and also in Tetralonia mirabilis of Smith, 

 from Brazil. 



The Hymenoptera, also, show their superiority to all other in- 

 sects in the form of their degraded wingless species, such as 

 Pezomachus, the workers of Formica and the female of 3futiUa. 

 In these forms we have no striking resemblances to lower orders 

 and suborders, but a strong adherence to their own Hymenop- 

 terous characters. Again ; in the degradational winged forms, 

 we rarely find the antennae pectinated ; a common occurrence 

 in the lower suborders. In a low species of the AiJiarioi ^ 

 Lamjjrocolletes cladocerus, from Australia, — that land of anom- 

 alies, — the antemiie are pectinated. This, Mr. F. Smith, the 

 best living autliority on this suborder, says, "is certainl}^ the 

 most remarkable bee that I have seen, and the only in- 

 stance, to my knowledge, of a bee having pectinated antennae ; 

 sucli an occurrence, indeed, in the Aculeate Hymenoptera is 

 only known in two or three instances, as in Psammothenna Jfab- 

 ellata amongst the 3IutiUldce, and again in Ctenocerus Khigii 

 in the Pomjjilidce ; there is also a modification of it in one or 

 two other species of Pom^jilidm ." Among the Tenthre- 

 d 1711 dee, the male Loj^hyrus has well-pectinated antenniie, as 

 also has Cladomacra macropus of Smith, from New Guinea 

 and Celebes. 



Tiie wings of perhaps the most degraded Hymenoptera, the 

 Proctotrupidoe, are rarely fissured; when this occurs, as in 

 Pteratomus Patnamii, they somewhat resemble those of Ptero- 

 phorus, the lowest moth. It is extremely rare that the com- 

 pound eyes are replaced by stemmata, or simple eyes ; in but 

 one instance, the genus Anthojjhorxibia, are the eyes in the 

 male sex reduced to a simple ocellus. This species lives in the 

 darkness of the cells of Anthophora. 



