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HYMENOPTERA. 



Notes on Hymenoptera. 

 By Frederick Smith. 



Since the publication of the first Entomolo^cal Annual in 

 the year 1855, to which I contributed a few notes, I have been 

 annually requested to furnish a record of such observations as 

 I have made during the season on the order Hymenoptera ; 

 it has consequently become customary that I should make 

 an annual report. 



During the last twenty-five years, no season has offered 

 to me so few opportunities of observing the habits of the 

 Aculeata ; not that I have been less assiduous in my re- 

 searches, or have had less time at my disposal for that 

 purpose, but that these insects have become so diminished in 

 numbers, that should similar ungenial weather continue to 

 prevail during the next two or three years, it will, probably, 

 become ray task to record the almost entire destruction of 

 the tribe. 



The almost unprecedented wet season of 1860, in the 

 south of England, proved destructive, I believe, to two-thirds 

 of the Aculeate Hymenoptera. The broods of 1861 Avould 

 of course be expected to appear during the season of 1862, 

 but the cold and continual rains that prevailed, from the 

 first of March to the beginning of June, proved destructive, 

 I fear, to the greater portion of them. I have frequently 

 seen on a single day, during a season of fine genial weather, 



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